About David Davis (British politician)
Sir David Michael Davis (born 23 December 1948) is a British Conservative Party politician who has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Goole and Pocklington, previously Haltemprice and Howden and Boothferry, since 1987. He served as Shadow Home Secretary from 2003 to 2008 and Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union from 2016 to 2018. Davis was sworn of the Privy Council in the 1997 New Year Honours, while serving as Minister of State for Europe, a role he held from 1994 to 1997. Brought up on the Aboyne Estate, a council estate in Tooting, south-west London, he attended Bec School. Later he earned an MBA from London Business School and worked for Tate & Lyle. He was a close personal friend of former leader of the Scottish National Party and First Minister of Scotland Alex Salmond. Having entered Parliament in 1987, he was appointed Europe Minister by Prime Minister John Major in July 1994. He held that position until the 1997 general election. He was subsequently Chairman of the Conservative Party and Shadow Secretary of State for the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister under Iain Duncan Smith. Between 2003 and 2008 he was the Shadow Home Secretary in the Shadow Cabinets of both Michael Howard and David Cameron. Davis had previously been a candidate in the 2001 and 2005 Conservative Party leadership elections, coming fourth and second respectively. On 12 June 2008 Davis unexpectedly announced his intention to resign as an MP and was immediately replaced as Shadow Home Secretary; this was in order to force a by-election in his seat, for which he intended to seek reelection by mounting a specific campaign designed to provoke wider public debate about the erosion of civil liberties in the United Kingdom. Following his formal resignation as an MP he became the Conservative candidate in the resulting by-election, which he won a month later. In July 2016, following the Brexit referendum, Davis was appointed by the new prime minister, Theresa May, to the new Department for Exiting the European Union (DExEU) as Secretary of State, with responsibility for negotiating the UK's prospective exit from the EU. He was sidelined mid-way through the talks, with the Prime Minister's Europe Adviser Olly Robbins taking charge of negotiations. Davis resigned from his government position on 8 July 2018 over May's Brexit strategy and the Chequers plan. Following his resignation, the DExEU junior minister Steve Baker and the Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson also resigned. Since 2018, Davis has remained active in the House of Commons as a backbencher, using parliamentary privilege to criticise various issues, including the Scottish Government's investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct by Alex Salmond, doubts about the conviction of Lucy Letby, and the scandal surrounding Peter Mandelson's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. He was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) in the 2023 Political Honours for public and political service.
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