Insight
As Frost departs, will the ice melt across the Channel? by Charles Grant, 20 December 2021
David Frost’s resignation as Brexit minister matters: he greatly influenced Boris Johnson’s Brexit policy. With Liz Truss replacing him, UK policy towards the EU may become less confrontational. Not long ago I was asked by a Commission official who on the British side mattered in the Brexit negotiations, apart from David Frost and the prime minister. My answer was almost nobody else. On certain issues the cabinet secretary or a particular adviser might be consulted. But on most of the key decisions in the Brexit negotiations, Frost’s views were paramount, alongside those of Boris Johnson. Few other cabinet ministers have played much of a role in the Brexit talks, particularly since Frost – chief Brexit negotiator since June 2019, and a life peer since August 2020 – was promoted to the cabinet in March 2021. Frost, like Johnson and most of the European Research Group (ERG) Tories in Parliament, wanted a sovereignty-first Brexit that maximised regulatory freedom, without worrying too much about the economic consequences, and he achieved it. Frost influenced not only the substance of the Brexit talks but also their style. He was an advocate of the ‘thump’em’ school of diplomacy, believing that acting tough gets better results; he said that Theresa May’s Brexit deal suffered from her negotiators being too accommodating. My own view is that diplomacy usually achieves more if you retain or generate some good will on the other side. But Frost’s supporters point to the Commission’s October proposals to improve the working of the Northern Ireland protocol: they think the Commission would not have made such a generous offer without being scared that the UK would invoke the protocol’s Article 16, which could lead to the UK renouncing that document altogether. Frost made himself an extraordinarily unpopular figure in Brussels and in EU capitals. EU officials shake their heads when they quote his speech to the October Conservative Party Conference, in which he spoke of Britain awakening from the “long bad dream” of EU membership. Visiting Brussels three weeks ago, I was told that relations with the UK could not improve so long as Frost remained in post. Officials lamented Michael Gove’s removal from the negotiations on the Northern Ireland protocol (at the same time that Frost became a cabinet minister), for Gove had displayed diplomatic skills and built a constructive relationship with Maroš Šefčovič, the commissioner who leads on the EU side.
CER INSIGHT: As Frost departs, will the ice melt across the Channel? 20 December 2021
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