David Davis
 David Davis    | |
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| Born | David Michael Davis 23 December 1948 |
| Member of | Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China |
David Davis (born 23 December 1948) is a British Conservative Party politician who has been the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union since 13 July 2016. The Member of Parliament (MP) for Haltemprice and Howden, Davis was sworn of the Privy Council in the 1997 New Year Honours, having previously been Minister of State at the Foreign Office from July 1994 to April 1997.
Davis was raised on Aboyne Estate, a council estate in Tooting, South West London. After attending Bec Grammar School in Tooting, London, he went on to gain a Master's degree in business at the age of 25, and went into a career with sugar refiners Tate & Lyle.
Entering Parliament in 1987 for the Boothferry constituency, in his subsequent political career he held the positions of Conservative party chairman and Shadow Deputy Prime Minister. Between 2003 and 2008, he was the Shadow Home Secretary in the shadow cabinet, under both Michael Howard and David Cameron. Davis had previously been a candidate for the leadership of the Conservative Party in 2001 and 2005, coming fourth and then second.
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 re-election 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 in June 2008, he officially became the Conservative candidate in the resulting by-election and won it in July 2008. In 2010, Davis was invited by Prime Minister David Cameron to join the cabinet of his coalition government, but he declined and stayed on the backbenches. In July 2016, following the UK voting to leave the European Union, Davis was appointed by Theresa May as the Brexit Secretary.[1]
