Reading it, one gets the sense of a man drunk with power who thinks he’s the leader of the free world.
I dare say one day, we will look back on his speech with a profound sense of humiliation and embarrassment. It is shot through with hubris. The Germans are, above all, realists. They look at things how they are, not how they would like them to be. There are no rose tinted glasses in Germany I can assure you. Now it must seem as if half the UK population wears them.
They will know Frost is living in a dream world. I take a few examples. First he claims that relations with Germany are good but relations with the EU collectively and with the institutions are "a bit more bumpy."
"Indeed I would go further. I think those who campaigned for Brexit wanted and expected genuinely friendly and free-trading relations between the UK and the European Union – and still do. Nothing was further from our thoughts than the current fractious and friction-filled relationship that we seem to have now."
Really? Throughout the campaign there were references to the Second World War, to punishment beatings, to concentration camps, Germany trying to dominate Europe and goodness knows what. There has been nothing but fractious and friction filled negotiations and Frost is perhaps the most guilty of it!
"Second, a reflection on why Brexit matters so much to us. It’s worth saying perhaps to our German friends that there is no longer any serious debate on the subject in Britain. No major political party advocates EU membership, and, while a proportion of the public may still regret Brexit, there is no energy behind a rejoin movement. Overwhelmingly we are now looking forward."
Really? No longer any serious debate? The polling (until it was stopped recently) showed a majority thought Brexit was a mistake, and nobody will know better how the Vote Leave campaign used misinformation, exaggeration and downright lies than the Germans. To assume there is no 'energy' behind a rejoin movement is simply wishful thinking.
"And finally some [current difficulties] also stems from what we see now. We have been surprised by the EU’s willingness to resort quite quickly to threats when problems arise – over vaccines, over fish, over financial services, and indeed over Northern Ireland."
Really? The U.K. government used the threat of leaving without a deal all the way through, knowing how it would disrupt trade. The ‘threats’ he refers to was the EU pointing out we were not going to be allowed to have our cake and eat it. And that Brexit had to mean Brexit.
And what about this one for lack of self awareness:
"Those of us who became convinced, publicly or privately, in the years after 2010 of the need to leave the EU did so not because of some obsessional attraction to sovereignty."
Really? Whenever anyone has suggested any form of compromise, Frost has fallen back on sovereignty. Even last week at the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee he referred to sovereignty as the reason we couldn’t align with EU food regulations. It must be an obsession to trade the well being of millions of fellow citizens for some nebulous and totally outdated concept of national sovereignty.
"I think it’s worth making clear that this is not just a Brexit of the right. We’ve seen perhaps the most significant change in British politics for a generation – a profound shift towards Brexit, and the Conservative Party, from parts of the country which have traditionally leaned left."
Really? This was on the day the Tory party lost Chesham & Amersham to the Lib Dems. This was a seat that had always been Conservative since it was created in the 1990s and in 2019 enjoyed a 16,000 majority. On Thursday, the Lib Dem’s won it with an 8,000 majority. It looks like a profound shift away from Brexit.
"The point I want to make is that leaving the EU wasn’t the final goal – it was a doorway, a portal through which we had to pass, the beginning of a journey to national renewal and a repositioning of Britain on the world stage."
Really? Britain’s standing globally has never been lower. We are either despised or laughed at. Even the USA are delivering official diplomatic rebukes about our cavalier approach to international law. For the first time ever, the U.K. has no seat on the international court. This is all self-inflicted.
"We think we have made a fairly good start to that renewal process, with a world class vaccination programme and indeed vaccine – as indeed does Germany. The predicted collapse in trade has not happened."
Really? The BBC were reporting this week that UK food exports from the U.K. to the European Union has fallen by 47% in the first three months. If this isn't a collapse in trade I don't know what is. The vaccination programme is the ONLY modest and transient success he can point to. By the end of the summer the EU will have caught up.
Far from improving relations with Germany, his speech will convince most Germans that we have indeed completely lost the plot.
