David Frost has claimed that Brexit has gone “remarkably smoothly”, one day after fresh evidence of rising food costs and firms abandoning trade with the EU.
The negotiator of Boris Johnson’s trade deal – who quit the government last year – claimed there are “lack of things to talk about”, other than the controversy over the Irish Sea trade border it created.
“Occasionally, another issue like fishing or touring performers gets a look in,” he told an event about the future of the Northern Ireland protocol.
“But, generally, it’s actually quite remarkable how smoothly the total reordering of this country’s relations has gone.”
The comments come despite Lord Frost disowning his own agreement for breaking a promise to spare touring musicians and other performers new punishing costs and red tape.
Border bureaucracy also means the UK has “stopped selling” many products to smaller EU countries, according to new evidence of the impact of leaving the EU single market and customs union.
And food prices have leapt by 6 per cent, with grocery bills containing products such as fresh pork, tomatoes and jams rising most sharply, because of the end to frictionless trade.
Speaking to the Policy Exchange think-tank, Lord Frost admitted the government had forced through the protocol while planning to “sort out the necessary detail with the EU later”.
He repeated his call for it to be torn up – by invoking Article 16, to suspend parts of the treaty if necessary – as the government plots new legislation in next month’s Queen’s Speech.
The peer also dismissed warnings that rewriting it unilaterally would damage the UK, because it would be breaking international law, claiming “the protocol is different” because it was “imposed under duress”.
But he conceded that abandoning it “will of course require domestic legislation”, setting up a clash with the House of Lords and Tory rebels in the Commons, if the government presses ahead.
Lord Frost also claimed the protocol is “explicitly temporary”, despite it being an international agreement that the EU has insisted the UK must abide by.
And he argued it will be thrown out by the Stormont Assembly in a “consent” vote due in 2024, although that would not, by itself, end the legal obligations entered into.
Asked if he is responsible for the crisis, Lord Frost replied: “I think Unionist criticism is best directed at the EU and the commission who put us in this position in the first place.”
He admitted the protocol had “much earlier than we expected, and in ways we had not foreseen, started to come apart”.
But, Lord Frost argued: “I note that much recent debate about Brexit is really about the pros and cons of the protocol. In a way, that’s a good thing. It reflects the relative lack of other things talk about.”
