Lord Frost has more or less admitted failure in his renegotiation of Theresa May's Withdrawal Agreement in 2019. After a two day visit to NI where he and met various businessmen and trade bodies to talk about the protocol (Oh to have been a fly on the wall of those meetings, eh?) he released a statement yesterday saying it was "unsustainable." Read it HERE.
The key bit is this (in quotes from the man himself);
“It’s clear from my visit that the Protocol is presenting significant challenges for many in Northern Ireland. Businesses have gone to extraordinary efforts to make the current requirements work, but it is hard to see that the way the Protocol is currently operating can be sustainable for long.
“We’re committed to working through the issues with the EU urgently and in good faith. I hope they will take a common sense, risk-based approach that enables us to agree a pragmatic way forward that substantially eases the burdens on Northern Ireland.
“Solutions must be found rapidly in order to protect the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement in all its dimensions and to minimise disruption to the everyday lives of people in Northern Ireland - as the Protocol itself requires. As the Prime Minister has made clear, we will continue to consider all our options in meeting our overriding responsibility for sustaining the peace and prosperity of everyone in Northern Ireland.”
It might have been a good idea not to have set yourself a ridiculous timetable and consulted business about what you were agreeing to before the last few frantic days of October 2019, when negotiating with much smarter people than yourself.
Jessica Simon QC tweeted:
Never has there been a greater admission of utter failure than the quotes by David Frost in this article. He should resign and return his peerage. https://t.co/wcjzJDo7FR
— Jessica Simor QC (@JMPSimor) May 11, 2021
So, the statement included a plea for a risk based approach that the EU have explicitly ruled our and it came with a veiled threat to "consider all options" if the EU didn't give in.
The protocol and the TCA are the result of what Britain has done with its new found sovereignty. The trade deal and withdrawal agreement have been models of how not to negotiate with the EU.
Begin with a lot of hubris and unrealisable aims, insult your interlocutor at every turn, set crazy deadlines giving yourself little time to think or consult, refuse to accept the inevitable consequences of your own policy, deny the details until you are forced to confront the disastrous results, betray the people who supported you, ignore the needs of the wealth creating sectors and then complain that the other side is not being pragmatic.
They now squeal that it is not sustainable and plead for changes to what they signed up to. It will not be greeted well in Brussels:
So much for the “unwavering, unambiguous“ top-level HMG commitment to NI Protocol that EU was seeking. Big risk @EU_Commission @MarosSefcovic will simply soft pedal everything else until this is forthcoming https://t.co/WPdMQmnFIm
— Mujtaba Rahman (@Mij_Europe) May 11, 2021
This is the protocol Frost personally negotiated, Johnson hailed as an oven ready deal and the House of Commons voted overwhelmingly in favour of. Even Sir Bill Cash gave it the thumbs last December after he and his star chamber went through the TCA and as part of their review declared the NI protocol, "leads to checks being required between Great Britain and NI. The position has been somewhat ameliorated by recent agreements in the Joint Committee."
None of them knew what they were doing except blindly pursuing sovereignty at the expense of all else.
Tony Connelly of RTE tweeted:
NEW: The UK’s lead minister on the Northern Ireland Protocol has said the Protocol was “not sustainable” if it continued to operate as it currently does.
— Tony Connelly (@tconnellyRTE) May 11, 2021
I fear that calls for ‘pragmatism’ from the EU are not likely to be heard in Brussels after Frost himself has deliberately been as difficult as possible for the last eighteen months.
This is the problem when you make enemies of friends and neighbours. When you need a bit of help and cooperation it isn't there. This is precisely what the EU was set up to avoid.
The FT report:
"Trade groups also warned there was now limited time for the EU and UK to reach an arrangement before new systems were introduced in October and before the politically sensitive summer months, with the so-called marching season, when the region’s Protestant Orange Order holds traditional parades, adding to the risk of political disturbances.
Finally, I note the Queen’s speech yesterday is being attacked for containing measures making it more difficult to vote, to have ministerial decisions reviewed by a judge and to protest peacefully if you've got a bee in your bonnet about something. It looks like the sort of thing you might hear from Hungary or even from President Lukashenko who is still busy beating down democracy in Belarus. We are sliding into authoritarianism under a man who looks like a clown and behaves like a second rate talk show host. Strange times.
But there was also some flesh put on the bones of the ‘levelling up’ agenda which will surely represent another betrayal in a few years time. Voters who think Johnson has the slightest interest in them will feel it keenly.
The Labour Party couldn’t do it under Brown and Blair, far more serious men than the current prime minister, when money was pouring into Treasury coffers after 1999 like a waterfall. Not only that, Brown cut the tax relief for pension funds paid on share dividends and increased the use of PFI and goodness knows what else to pay for infrastructure and social services. He had massive resources and couldn't level up.
Partly as a result of all that largesse, we are now maxed out in debt (up from 40% of GDP to over 100%) so Johnson will have no money to spend but he has also crippled EU trade to stop us earning it as well. Faced with massive debts after COVID, the OBR are already pointing to spending cuts and tax rises.
If the long standing problems could be solved by slogans we will be on easy street. Unfortunately, they won’t.
