Anti-Brexit lawyer Gina Miller has accused Dominic Raab of calling her a “silly bitch” as he resigned over bullying allegations.
Businesswoman Miller claimed Raab made the comment when they met in a lift in 2016 during the tense rows over Brexit.
She made the comments just a few hours before Raab announced his resignation as deputy prime minister following a probe into bullying allegations.
He had been under investigation for months after more than eight formal complaints were made about his behaviour.
Miller, who challenged the government over Brexit in the Supreme Court, claimed Raab made the comments after they appeared on the BBC’s Radio 4 Today programme around seven years ago.
“I have had a personal experience where he was a bully to me. I was doing the Today programme about the case I brought, my first case, and coming down from the show in the lift he basically called me names,” she told Talk TV’s Piers Morgan Uncensored.
“He said ‘I can’t work out if you are just a silly bitch, if you are rich or if you are just naive’. I think it is because he saw me as being lesser than himself.”
Sources close to Raab said the allegation was not true. She has made claims about the incident in the past which have been dismissed as “baseless and malicious”.
Raab, who was also the justice secretary, had told Sky’s Sophy Ridge on February 26 if an allegation of bullying is “upheld” that he will resign.
On Friday morning he announced on Twitter that he had quit Sunak’s cabinet following the conclusion of the inquiry.
Sunak received the report from senior lawyer Adam Tolley KC’s investigation on Thursday and had been considering the findings since.
In his resignation letter to the prime minister, Raab said: “Whilst I feel duty bound to accept the outcome of the inquiry, it dismissed all but two of the claims levelled against me.
“I also believe that its two adverse findings are flawed and set a dangerous precedent for the conduct of good government.”