David (Lord) Frost is clearly a man well out of his depth. Only a fool would negotiate a deal which he later describes as “not sustainable.” The cocksure former CEO of the Scotch Whisky Association, has been replaced by an oddly contrite character in an interview with the think tank, UK in a Changing Europe. The Guardian headline their report about it: Brexit campaigners ‘surprised’ by sour relations with EU, says Lord Frost.
He admits there is some surprise on the part of those who campaigned for Brexit at how bad EU-UK relations are at the moment but seems to exclude himself from that group, as if he expected it all to turn sour.
“I
don’t think those who campaigned, five years ago for Brexit drove the analysis,
drove the politics of it. I think they are surprised, quite often, to find
relations are in the state they’re in,” said Frost.
Few have been quite as obnoxious and abrasive as Frost himself. In March he was telling the EU to "stop sulking" and I wrote a post about him making a bad situation worse. This is apart from Brexiteers right up to the PM himself making plenty of disparaging remarks over the years about the EU being like Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union.
His speech in Brussels in February last year, seemed designed to get things going on the wrong foot when he openly repudiated the political declaration's provisions on the level playing field and talked down to the assembled EU diplomats. What did he expect?
In fact, an observer might conclude Lord Frost's negotiating style is built on him being stubborn, argumentative, smug and confrontational. Why they are surprised the EU side have taken it badly I really don't know. It is perhaps a throwback to empire when we went round the world conquering places and persuading the natives that they ought to be grateful for us being there. It's a sort of national lack of self-awareness.
What about this bit:
Asked if the government had “underestimated what sort of impact” the protocol would have on the movement of goods, Frost told UKCE:
“I don’t see what is wrong with learning from experience. This is a very unusual agreement and we’ve learned a lot about how economic actors behave … we underestimated the chilling effect.”
As CEO of the Scotch Whisky Association in 2016 before the referendum he wrote about Brexit and trade, and supported continued membership of the EU where he emphasised the benefits of having "no tariffs, no paperwork and no administrative barriers."
Listen to Lord Patten eviscerating Frost here:
Lord Patten - "Lord Frost has made a speciality of reaching trade deals which produce less trade." pic.twitter.com/7AwqJ00ONI
— Haggis_UK 🇬🇧 🇪🇺 (@Haggis_UK) June 24, 2021
I am afraid Brexit has revealed that we are led at the moment by men (it is mostly men) of limited ability not to say real stupidity. Frost is one and Shanker Singham is another. Both these men are 'advisers' appointed not because of any expertise or knowledge in their chosen field but because they reinforced the false ideas of those they were advising. They are not plucked from the mainstream of rational and reasoned thinking but because they were outriders who parroted back the daft notions held by other powerful but equally stupid men.
Singham has been writing for CAPX about 'borders of the future' - another unicorn about borders being frictionless and invisible, not requiring paperwork or staff or controls. His piece contains this:
“Having identified the Irish border as a key problem to resolve from late 2016, I developed a series of papers culminating in the Alternative Arrangements Commission. This work was the precursor to the Northern Ireland Protocol, which the two governments are now managing.”
This statement is a mystery to me. The Alternative Arrangements Commission was dreaming up untried, untested, invisible border controls that don’t actually exist. As far as I can see any ‘papers’ he prepared ended up in the waste bin. They certainly had no impact on the Irish Sea border, and if I was him I would keep quiet about it.
I wrote about it at the time (August 2019):
"The AAC report has no chance of success, at least in the very short term for all the reasons set out previously, namely that the British-Irish Chambers of Commerce trashed it. They said it was inadequate, unrealistic and lacked credibility. The cost of implementing it (put as high as £13 billion a year) was not even considered."
It was not the "precursor" of the NI protocol. And note he ‘identified’ the Irish border as a key problem in late 2016 which was a bit late. Most other people saw it coming well before the vote but they were not advisers (naturally) and were accused of scaremongering.
And what about this:
"The UK and EU are so physically close that they have relied on trucks to carry goods back and forth, and many of these movements are on a “groupage” basis, where products are picked up throughout GB and the continent on their way to the Dover-Calais corridor (across which there are 17,000 freight movements per year)."
In addition, like Dominic Raab, he seems to have recently discovered that the UK and EU are "physically close" and that trucks deliver goods to the continent by "groupage" - he's an adviser on trade but appears to know nothing about it - or even basic geography. I would be fascinated to know if any CapX readers didn't know the UK and the EU are physically close, but who knows?
I received Chris Grey's book: Brexit unfolded, how nobody got what they wanted [and why they were never going to] yesterday and I'm already on chapter three. It's a fascinating read.
I see Dr North is working on a revised version of his book The Great Deception, which he co-authored with Christopher Booker (the book was once described as not so much wrong but ludicrous). I wonder if he shouldn't give up on that and write another book about The Great Brexit Deception? He certainly knows a lot about it - and from the inside not the outside.
