Last week, I wrote about ‘Frost & Lewis’ (David and Oliver), leaders of our country’s team at the Brexit negotiations, guarantors of our Brexit intentions. It is they who have throughout maintained the essential position — that we are becoming an independent state and therefore will not trade sovereignty for market access. It is them, therefore, whom the EU wishes to neutralise. Hopes have risen in Brussels after the Downing Street ‘Carrie coup’ against Dominic Cummings. Frost & Lewis now lack a close friend at the court of King Boris except, possibly, the King himself. So it may be a good thing that Covid isolation forced them to return to London at the end of last week. They are negotiating from their base, close to their leader. Michel Barnier is constantly looking for British divisions. The latest attempt at weakening comes from those within the government who think it should accept the Lords rejection of the controversial clauses of the UK Internal Market Bill. These backstop measures are designed to uphold the Withdrawal Agreement’s insistence that Northern Ireland must remain, in fact and in law, part of the United Kingdom. If they were dropped now, this would convert a problem for Brussels into a problem for Britain. It would also cede a time advantage. The EU, with its cumbersome procedures involving the European parliament, needs to bring home an agreement quickly. The Westminster system can go almost up to the wire. That difference must be exploited.
My cousin Mary, who was, until recent retirement, an Olympic standard fencer, passes on a meme: ‘Fencing: the perfect Covid sport. 1. Masks. 2. Gloves. 3. If anybody gets closer than six feet to you, you stab him.’
Nodding to complaints (highlighted in this column) that the secretive China Centre at Jesus College, Cambridge, never permits criticism of the Chinese Communist regime, the Master, Sonita Alleyne, recently wrote to a concerned Jesuan: ‘In the spirit of respect for and acceptance of the wide range of views on China, please see below for a message from the Director of the China Centre, Professor Peter Nolan, inviting you to join an virtual event.’
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in