The Great Frost who learned to negotiate from the Kremlin
ARARE Brexiteer in Whitehall, Lord Frost has made his name fighting Britain’s battles with Brussels in the face of barefaced threats and hostile rhetoric. His fearsome reputation at the negotiating table prompted Boris Johnson to declare him the ‘Greatest Frost since the Great Frost of 1709’ in his conference speech this year.
The pair have been allies since Mr Johnson was Foreign Secretary. And when he became Prime Minister, Mr Johnson appointed the former career diplomat to take charge of the negotiations where Theresa May and her chief negotiator, Olly Robbins had failed.
Known as ‘Boris’s Brexit brain’ in Downing Street, Lord David Frost, 56, graduated from Oxford with a first-class degree in history and medieval French. He started his career as a diplomat in the Foreign Office, where his roles included being posted to Brussels and serving as ambassador to Denmark.
He left the civil service in 2013 to head the Scotch Whisky Association. At the time he wrote a pamphlet on negotiating with the EU which advised: ‘Make what you want seem normal.’
He was brought back into the government fold by Mr Johnson to advise him as Foreign Secretary, who then made him chief Brexit negotiator in 2019. Mr Johnson subsequently praised his ‘Herculean efforts in securing a deal with the EU’.
During his talks with Brussels, Lord Frost drew on tips from a book called The Kremlin School of Negotiation, written by Igor Ryzov, an expert in hardball tactics from the KGB era. The book, published in the UK in 2019, offers insights into Soviet tradecraft and tips such as putting opponents into a zone of uncertainty where ‘fear is the most powerful weapon’. And it describes Andrei Gromyko, the Soviet foreign minister involved in the Cuban Missile Crisis, as a master of the techniques.
Last year Mr Johnson gave Lord Frost joint responsibilities of leading post-Brexit trade negotiations with the EU and acting as National Security Adviser.
The security appointment prompted a tart comment from Mrs May who called him a ‘political appointee with no proven expertise in national security.’
However Lord Frost never took up the job full-time and instead retained a focus on negotiations with the EU, as well as taking up a seat in the House of Lords. His title since March last year has been Minister of State at the Cabinet Office, and he has been a full member of Mr Johnson’s Cabinet.
Since Britain left the EU, Lord Frost has been leading the postBrexit trade negotiations, taking a notably tough line and publicly saying he is not afraid of ripping up the Northern Ireland protocol.
He took to Twitter to attack ‘French rhetoric and threats’ over fisheries after a French minister said the EU could hit the UK’s energy supply.
In a significant speech in Portugal in October, Lord Frost laid down the gauntlet to the EU and said it ‘doesn’t always look like’ the bloc wants the UK to succeed. He said it will ‘take two’ to repair the ‘fractious’ relationship between Britain and Brussels.
But sources said Lord Frost has recently privately bemoaned the lack of movement over the protocol, and has said Mr Johnson is too distracted by other issues. Privately he says Mr Johnson isn’t ‘focused’ on the Northern Ireland talks, but when the PM does concentrate, he provides the political will to get talks over the line.
Last week, critics accused the Government of ‘going soft’ in its approach to the protocol as it announced negotiations would be rolled into the new year with a new deadline of the end of February.
Married to his second wife Harriet, Lord Frost has two children from his first marriage. He is a keen runner – but sources said he eased back last year when he suffered Covid symptoms.
He took to Twitter to attack French rhetoric and threats