By Emily Caulkett-
Prominent Remain campaigner Gina Miller has claimed that embattled deputy prime minister Dominic Raab bullied and demeaned her during an “aggressive” encounter in 2016.
Mr Raab, (Pictured)the justice secretary, is already facing a pool of bullying allegations over a number of years in different departments
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The allegations calls special attention to the idea of bullying and arrogance in government departments by officials who get too big for their boots.
Miller said she was “bullied and demeaned” by the deputy prime minister after he called her “stupid” and “naive” during an “aggressive” encounter at the BBC in 2016.
The details of what led to the unpleasant confrontation has not been stated
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More shocking is the claim from the prominent anti-Brexit activist Gina Miller that she saw Mr Raab tell the man to “go get me a f***ing car”.
The alleged incident took place after Ms Miller and Mr Raab appeared together on the Radio 4 Today show in 2016.
The shocking claims have already stained Mr Raab’s reputation, despite his denial of the allegations, which effectively should amount to defamation of character if she is lying.
Ms Miller wrote in her claims published in the Independent: “He was aggressive and intimidating, and I was bullied and demeaned. This was an aggressive male expressing seemingly misogynistic behaviour. This sort of behaviour is not acceptable from anyone, especially not from a powerful, influential politician.”
Referring to the alleged incident involving the BBC runner, she claims that he “barked” at the employee “Where’s my car?” When the young man replied that they had not been asked to arrange one for him, a “furious” Mr Raab shouted: “Go get me a f***ing car.”
Gina Miller Image:Cherwell
Mr Raab described the allegations as “baseless and malicious claims”. The staffer in question has not been publicly identified
The BBC is now expected to investigate the claims and offer to the young staffer, whose ill treatment at the time went without being addressed at the time.
Government officials have too long acted with impunity, seeming to consider themselves invincible.
Should the BBC conduct an investigation, it could also raise questions as to whether the alleged incident was brought to the corporation’s attention at the time, and how they handled it.
Such an incident, if it occured, could easily have been brushed aside as a temperamental moment, but when coming from a government minister, it is totally unacceptable and often indicative of other intolerable behaviour by such individuals to other staff in his line of work.
Downing Street has suggested that Simon Case, the cabinet secretary, failed to fully inform Rishi Sunak of a complaint about Dominic Raab before he appointed him to cabinet.
However, the PM’s spokesperson also insisted that Sunak retained full confidence in the cabinet secretary, his most senior civil service adviser.
Sunak has repeatedly insisted that he was not aware of any “formal” complaints about Raab’s treatment of officials when he reappointed him as justice secretary and deputy prime minister. But he has refused to say whether he was aware of informal concerns raised about Raab being a bully.
The Times reported that Boris Johnson’s ethics adviser, Simon Case was, aware of a written complaint that had been made about Raab when Boris Johnson was prime minister.
At the No 10 lobby briefing the PM’s spokesperson did not deny that Case was aware of this complaint.
It questions whether the complaint was ignored or taken seriously.
The Eye Of Media.Com has been aware since 2021 of a culture of not always taking official complaints seriously by so called professional officials under Boris Johnson’s government.
There is no evidence whether Johnson himself was aware of this shameful culture.
Bullying should never be tolerated under any circumstances whatsoever, especially from government representatives.
The BBC has been contacted for comment.
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