Lord Frost appeared before the so-called EU scrutiny committee yesterday. The committee is headed by Bill Cash and has some of the most dedicated Brexit zealots you can think of sitting on it. It has Richard Drax, Andrea Jenkins, David Jones, Marcus Fysh for example and far from scrutinising, they stroked his ego and asked him a lot of easy, vague questions. It was like Ronnie Biggs being scrutinised by the Kray twins.
One of the more surprising things he said was the government is considering hiring someone from the private sector to identify the 'opportunities' (they love that word) of Brexit. David Gauke tweeted:
Nearly five years after the referendum and the search continues. https://t.co/KAK6gEV9Fy
— David Gauke (@DavidGauke) May 17, 2021
This should have alarm bells ringing. They have had five (5) years to come up with some tangible benefit and clearly can't. Frost also alluded to Ian Duncan Smith's regulatory task force - Taskforce on Innovation, Growth and Regulatory Reform (TIGRR) - which was supposed to report back to the prime minister in April. I can only assume the opportunities are not as "huge" as Frost thinks - in fact there aren't any and the government is becoming a bit anxious..
This must be the fourth or fifth attempt the Tories have had to cut red tape starting with Oliver Letwin's efforts from 2012. As far as I can see, with Brexit, this has only resulted in a massive increase in red tape. I think IDS is probably having his eyes opened.
One of the results of Brexit is that the government is being forced to take responsibility and it appears there is a split in the cabinet over the Australian trade deal which Liz Truss is negotiating at speed in order to show we are better at it than Brussels.
The Mail had a piece the other day saying New Zealand and Australia were sticking by their hard line position of wanting all tariffs on agricultural products to be dropped. Eustice at DEFRA is against it because of the damage it would do to British farming. The FT have the story:
"The British government is locked in a “ferocious” internal battle over whether to sign off a trade deal with Australia after a split between the department of agriculture and the department of international trade over the terms of the agreement.
"Two people with knowledge of internal discussions said ministers were divided over whether to grant tariff-free access to Australian farmers, which would risk a backlash from the UK farming industry — and potentially spark domestic political fallout."