18th December 2021
So I spend a good part of today putting together some thoughts about the recent statement by the United Kingdom’s Brexit minister David Frost…
…and he then resigns (or so it is reported).
EXCLUSIVE: Brexit Minister Lord Frost has resigned from Boris Johnson’s Cabinet over the ‘political direction of his Government’. Full details in tomorrow’s Mail on Sunday.
— MoS_Politics (@MoS_Politics) December 18, 2021
Frost has fallen, before Christmas.
*
Frost is blaming other things for his resignation, other than himself and the agreements he negotiated with the European Union.
Well.
He would say that, wouldn’t he.
The reality is that the United Kingdom was in the preposterous position of seeking to renege on the very agreements it had only just negotiated and signed.
As Frost had negotiated those agreements it was impossible that he could be taken seriously.
No international agreement negotiator ever had less credibility.
And now he has gone – and the Northern Irish Protocol is still there.
Perhaps, like the North Shropshire by-election result this departure signifies a shift towards post-Brexit politics.
Perhaps it signifies an acceptance of the weakness of the position of the United Kingdom vis-a-vis the European Union on Irish questions when the European Union and Ireland is supported by the United States.
But on any view it means that there can be a fresh start for shaping the post-Brexit relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union.
At last.
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Frosty the Nowhere Man
Had to hurry on his way
But he waved good-bye, saying, “Don’t you cry
I’ll be back again some day!”
I gather due to a quirk in the legislation that a life peer may not have to renounce his or her peerage when standing for election to the Other Place.
Congratulations! Clearly cause and effect.
I cannot think of a better piece of news to receive in these dark days.
Frost has been one of the most malign influences on the life of the nation for far too long.
A thoroughly second-rate man, diplomat, would-be politician and human being.
Frost epitomised everything that is wrong with this government (except perhaps dishonesty: he owned & glorified in his own stupidity!).
As Jonathan Miller once memorably said of a provincial theatre critic (Herbert Kretzmer of the Oxford Mail, if you insist):
“The man has delusions of adequacy”.
Vale Frost. You were a thankfully temporary carbuncle on the posterior of the nation.
and on my birthday! thanks for that wonderful present
Happy Birthday! Mine’s in July but I’m still pretty chuffed.
And the collective intellect of the Cabinet rises 5 points.
Supposing he nominates Steve Baker to replace Lord Frost? – From what we know of Johnson, we can’t discount this as a possibility.
But – please God – no!
“The name’s Mordaunt, Penelope Mordaunt, acting Sub-Lieutenant, Royal Naval Reserve …”
And, no, I am not joking.
https://jodatu.wordpress.com/2021/12/16/the-names-mordaunt-penelope-mordaunt-acting-sub-lieutenant-royal-naval-reserve-ive-got-a-thousand-yard-stare-and-im-not-afraid-to-use-it/
My thoughts exactly. Her recent jamboree in the US shows she’s very capable…
of repeating everything she’s instructed to say when it comes to flogging dead horses and family silver.
I think yes Liz. It is time. We have seen how long they can skulk waiting decades for the right time to strike once the system is weak and change is due. The money and ideas of mercer and koch will aye be there, ready to flood in through any leak. Working through the evangelist Baker offering Bojo a way to keep his title a while longer and with Truss and Javid cheering on, let them come.
Past time we had a square go in the open. They must be seen to have their chance, be faced off and shown out. Discredited forever so that humanity may move on.
The selfselfselfselfself party, against the rest of us.
An interestingly radical suggestion. Perhaps Baker could do the health job too.
Unfortunately it reminded me of the Labour MPs like Margaret Becket who voted for Corbyn so that he could go forward to the membership vote and be soundly defeated. That didn’t go well.
I gather the working title of Lord Frost’s autobiography is “From a Teenager to a Mouse”.
Frost has his own particularly unique take on the art of doing a deal.
He believes there are of four types of negotiator. The teenager, the tank, the mouse and the leader.
Lord Frost told the team he headed during the Brexit negotiations that the EU tended to being a teenager or a tank, whereas the UK was too often a mouse.
He urged his troops to be the leader in the room.
Is really a pig. Scarf up everything that doesn’t put up a fight and loudly avoid everything else.
andrej klemencic, slovenia
Whenever someone get’s fired or resigns from this government my initial reaction is: About Time
And then it turns to fear when I realise that they will almost certainly be replaced by someone even worse
I wonder whether Lord Frost actually expected his resignation to be accepted by Boris Johnson.
Does he now join William Huskisson MP and Randolph Churchill MP in the list of politicians who misjudged the import of their decision to resign from a (Tory) Cabinet?
Huskisson is now remembered as the first fatality from being hit by a steam hauled railway train and Churchill, who famously forgot Goschen, is now almost entirely remembered because of his son.
“Frost has fallen, before Christmas”
Surely, Frost has melted, before Christmas
Frost was just Johnson puppet. As his default mode of operation was passive aggressive belligerence, this was fine when the goal was to start a playground culture war with the EU to prop up his base of voters. Now BJ has been reminded/just noticed that there are serious strategic issues involving Putin, Russia, Ukraine, and gas prices, the serious allies dont want a silly game between allies to get in the way, I dont understand why they are so bothered about Frost as he has no purpose when real negotiations take place. Hence all the capitulation on ECJ and art 16, and French fishermen and the reasonable love bombing of NI by the EU. The main casualties are Frost and the DUP who forgot their main objective of being Unionists which they compromised by overplaying their hand by supporting Brexit.
SO my guess is that no10 are not as bothered as the MoS suggests by Frost melting away but might as well pretend to be.
Thank goodness we have taken back control!!!!!
Hopefully out Foreign Secretary has all this under control.
“Now BJ has been reminded/just noticed”
You give him too much credit
He knows what’s about to hit us.
Poor old Frostie.
Green taxes, increased taxes, plan B, take your pick.
The truth is he simply ran out of road with the treaty he himself had crafted and negotiated.
Very likely true.
Neville Chamberlain had only one Sir Horace Wilson.
Boris Johnson has had at least two to date.
Dominic Cummings left last December and Lord Frost is leaving this December.
The third Mrs Johnson brokered the meeting between her then boyfriend and Cummings in the summer of 2019 that brought Cummings into the Government.
Cummings has since claimed that irreconcilable differences ended their relationship some 18 months later.
No doubt Mr Johnson can promote the new traitor irritant to the House of Lords and leave you lefty socialist remainer scum smoking his tailpipes. Not so clever now are you?
The cost of the Net Zero green agenda was always likely to be the final straw.
We are assuming that when Frost uses the word ‘resign’ he means ‘resign’ rather than, say, ‘stand on his head and gibber’.
May I suggest a “North Shropshire Protocol” to replace the Northern Ireland Protocol? No, it (the NSP) hasn’t been thought out, but then again, neither was the original, so it can’t be any worse.
First moves of an attempted, even more, right wing coup within the Conservative party to replace Johnson with an ‘ultra’.
Have just read his resignation letter – does he honestly believe the guff he wrote ? – ” we put an end to the political turbulence” !!!
“300 years of history show we have taken the correct route”!! The man is clearly in need of professional counselling.
Frost gone – who cares, he was wasting his time and our money. Let us hope Boris learns and keeps his fingers out of NI. Meanwhile the DM tells us Frost is ‘a genuine patriot’ – strictly for the gammons. Slowly slowly slowly Boris et al will shift policy and attitude to the EU, they don’t have any realistic choice. Brexit – a non solution to the wrong problem.
Watching the parade of these ministers is very much like a trip down a memory lane paved with relentless nemesis: I very well remember Theresa May’s warning – yes, that old stupid hen – to the EU, as reported by The Times in January 2017: “Give us a fair deal or you’ll be crushed”.
These have been years – and how many more will follow? – of the most disgraceful display of Britain’s arrogance. Will the Tory finally understand that the end is an inevitable national disaster?
He has gone because as an intimate in the negotiations over NI he knows that this is going very badly for the UK. He also knows that in large measure he negotiated Brexit and will be blamed for whatever goes wrong. (Which is almost all of it!) So he’s leaving for what he avers are his own reasons before someone shoves him out for the real reason, which is the awful un-deliverable Brexit that he negotiated. No matter what he says, Brexit will stand as a monument to Lord Frost for the rest of his days, like Allegra, he may find it difficult to get another job after this! I wonder whether he will break down in tears when he faces the press?