Frost: PM must brave it out over Protocol
Tough approach over Ukraine should be used to end deal, former minister says
BORIS JOHNSON must show the same leadership over Northern Ireland as he has on Ukraine by ripping up the Northern Ireland Protocol, says Lord Frost.
The former Brexit minister, who was the architect of the 2019 withdrawal deal, said efforts to broker an agreement have “reached the end of the road” and urged the Prime Minister to act now to save the Union even if it means “confrontation” with the EU.
Writing in today’s Daily Telegraph, he said Sinn Fein’s victory in last week’s Stormont elections and the refusal of the DUP to enter power-sharing have “forced the Government’s hand”.
He added: “The Government has no option now other than to act unilaterally to disapply part or all of the Protocol. The Belfast Good Friday Agreement, which the Protocol is supposed to protect, is on life support.
“Sometimes governments and their leaders must do the right thing. Fortunately, doing the right thing is usually also the best thing for our country.
“We may, of course, face EU retaliation, though it would be disproportionate to the trade involved, only arguably legal and entirely self-defeating.”
Lord Frost’s intervention comes after a day during which relations further deteriorated, with Brussels saying any move to end border checks would be “simply not acceptable” and “undermine trust between the EU and UK”.
During a “tetchy” half-hour call with Liz Truss, the Foreign Secretary, the EU’S negotiator, Maros Sefcovic, refused to consider tabling new proposals.
Mr Sefcovic later told reporters that “the UK mandate needs to be expanded to contain a political will to implement the Protocol”.
He claimed Ms Truss told him she plans to table legislation next week to override border checks and that she rejected an offer of intensified negotiations he made in February.
The Foreign Secretary told him the EU’S approach was creating a “two-tier system” within the UK and would leave her with “no choice” but to unilaterally cancel large parts of the Protocol.
She said she “regrets” that European leaders aren’t prepared to show more “flexibility” on red tape.
Mr Johnson told a meeting of the Cabinet held in Stoke-on-trent yesterday that fixing the Protocol was “an absolute slam dunk”.
Speaking afterwards, he said: “There’s one community in Northern Ireland that won’t accept the way the Protocol works. We’ve got to fix that.”
The Protocol was agreed to stop the need for goods checks at the land border between Ulster and the Republic.
But the level of red tape demanded by the EU on shipments arriving in Northern Ireland from Great Britain has spooked Unionists.
Britain has since proposed a system of green and red lanes under which goods destined only for Northern Ireland would undergo light-touch controls to reduce burdens on businesses.
Brussels is open to the idea but has been accused of an overly cautious approach to classifying which shipments are at risk of travelling onwards to the Republic.
Last night Lord Frost told Joe Biden to stop giving Britain “lectures” about the peace process after a State Department spokesman urged No10 to “continue” with the talks.
In a speech to the Heritage Foundation think tank in Washington, he suggested the US President doesn’t understand the “niceties” of Northern Ireland. He said: “It is our country that faced the Troubles. We don’t need lectures from others about the peace process and the Good Friday Agreement.”
But the PM can expect to face opposition from some Conservative MPS if he goes ahead with new legislation. “It’s not a good look for a leading member of the international community and one of the permanent five members of the UN to sign a treaty and then unilaterally disavow it,” said Andrew Mitchell, former Cabinet minister.