Artist Overview
David Michael Davis (born 23 December 1948) is a British Conservative Party politician who served as Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union from July 2016 to July 2018, and has served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Haltemprice and Howden since 1997.He was previously elected to the House of Commons for Boothferry in 1987, and reelected in 1992.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. He was brought up on the Aboyne Estate, a council estate in Tooting, South West London.After attending Bec Grammar School in Tooting, he went on to gain a master's degree in business at the age of 25, and went into a career with Tate & Lyle.Having entered Parliament in 1987, at the age of 38, he was appointed Europe Minister by Prime Minister John Major in July 1994.He held that position until the 1997 general election.He subsequently was Conservative Party Chairman and Shadow Secretary of State for the Office of Deputy Prime Minister. 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 for the leadership of the Conservative Party in 2001 and 2005, 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 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 he became the Conservative candidate in the resulting by-election, which he won a month later.In 2012, together with Liam Fox, he founded Conservative pressure group Conservative Voice to amplify the voice of grassroots members, which Davis thought was getting lost in the party. In July 2016, following a referendum in which a majority of those voting supported leaving the European Union, he was appointed by new Prime Minister Theresa May to the brand-new Department for Exiting the European Union (DExEU) as Secretary of State, with responsibility for negotiating the UK's prospective exit from the EU. Davis resigned from his government position on 8 July 2018.Following the resignation, DExEU junior minister Steve Baker and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson also resigned.