David Davis (British politician)
Sir David Michael Davis KCB (born 23 December 1948) is a British politician who served as Shadow Home Secretary from 2003 to 2008 and Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union from 2016 to 2018. A member of the Conservative Party, he has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Haltemprice and Howden, formerly Boothferry, since 1987. Davis was sworn of the Privy Council in the 1997 New Year Honours, having previously been Minister of State for Europe from 1994 to 1997.
This article is about the MP for Haltemprice and Howden. For the MP for Monmouth, see David TC Davies. For other uses, see David Davis.
Sir David Davis
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Brought up on the Aboyne Estate, a council estate in Tooting, South West London, he attended Bec Grammar School and earned an MBA, before joining Tate & Lyle. 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.
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Early life and career[edit]
Born to a single mother, Betty Brown, in York[1] on 23 December 1948, Davis was initially raised by his grandparents. His maternal grandfather, Walter Harrison, was the son of a wealthy trawlerman, but was disinherited after joining the Communist Party; he led a 'hunger march' to London shortly after the more famous Jarrow March, which did not allow Communists to participate.[2] His father, whom he met once after his mother's death, was Welsh.[1] After his mother married Ronald Davis the family moved to London, where they lived initially in a flat in Wandsworth, which Davis has described as "a terrible little slum". Later, after his half-sister was born, the family moved to a council estate in Tooting, his stepfather being a shop steward at Battersea Power Station.[3]
Davis went to Bec Grammar School in Tooting, and when he left, his A Level results were not good enough to secure a university place. He subsequently worked as an insurance clerk and became a soldier in the Territorial Army's 21 SAS (Artists) to earn the money needed to retake his examinations. After doing so he won a place at the University of Warwick, where he graduated with a BSc Joint Hons in Molecular Science and Computer Science in 1971. While at Warwick he was one of the founding members of the student radio station, University Radio Warwick.
Davis worked for Tate & Lyle for 17 years, rising to become a senior executive, including restructuring its troubled Canadian subsidiary, Redpath Sugar.[4] He wrote about his business experiences in the 1988 book How to Turn Round a Company.[5]
Personal life[edit]
Davis met his wife, Doreen Cook, at Warwick. They married on 28 July 1973 and have three children.[94][95]
In December 2023, Davis fought off street attackers who were kicking a man, near Parliament.[96]
He was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) in the 2023 Political Honours for public and political service.[97]
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