Brexit supremo to take on job (but what about our trade deal?)
REPLACING Sir Mark Sedwill as national security adviser with Boris Johnson’s chief negotiator in Europe effectively sets a hard deadline on Brexit trade talks, Downing Street said last night.
David Frost, a career diplomat, will move to his new role by the beginning of September. This means that talks with Brussels over a free trade deal will have to be completed by the end of August at the latest.
If no agreement is reached by then, the UK will leave without a deal when the transition period ends on December 31. The Government hopes the deadline will increase pressure on EU leaders to make concessions which would make it easier to seal a free trade deal.
The Prime Minister’s decision to appoint two successors to Sir Mark – a new national security adviser and a new Cabinet Secretary – is designed to ensure Britain can play a major part on the world stage.
In another break from tradition, Mr Frost’s is a political appointment rather than a civil service one – meaning he is more akin to a special adviser. Regarded as a close associate
of Dominic Cummings, the 55-year-old, pictured, has no previous national security experience. However, he will now be the principal adviser to the Prime Minister and Cabinet on national security strategy, policy and planning for emergencies.
Born in Derby, Mr Frost won a scholarship to Nottingham High School before going on to study French and history at St John’s College, Oxford. He joined the Foreign Office in 1987, with his first posting taking him to the British High Commission in Cyprus. In 1993 he experienced his first taste of working with the EU when he was posted to Brussels as first secretary for economic and financial affairs. He was then sent to the United Nations. Between 2006 and 2008 he was Britain’s ambassador to Denmark before becoming the UK’s most senior trade policy official in the business department. He left the diplomatic service in 2013 to head the Scotch Whisky Association – but when
Mr Johnson became foreign secretary he returned to government as his special adviser.
He also served as a member of the advisory council of Open Europe, a Eurosceptic think-tank.
When Mr Johnson became Prime Minister, Mr Frost came back on board and duly negotiated the deal which enabled Britain to leave the EU at the end of January.
News of his new job follows Angela Merkel’s warning that Britain will have to ‘live with the consequences’ of Mr Johnson’s plan to ditch close economic ties with the EU.
Amid deadlock over whether Britain must comply with the bloc’s state aid rules and environmental, social and labour standards in return for a free trade deal, the German Chancellor said: ‘We need to let go of the idea that it is for us to define what Britain should want. That is for Britain to define – and we, the EU27, will respond appropriately.’