Gosh. It seems like it was only yesterday Mr S was in the Manchester conference hall hearing Lord Frost telling attendees how he planned to make Brexit a success. Just ten days ago he enraptured the Adam Smith Institute with his small-state calls for a ‘bit less social distancing and a bit more socialist distancing.’ Now he’s gone, the first major Cabinet resignation since Boris Johnson cleared out Theresa May’s team in July 2019. How has the bombshell – revealed earlier by the Mail on Sunday – gone down in a Tory party still seething from Thursday’s North Shropshire by-election defeat?
Early indications are of shock and dismay from across the party. The right of the party, which has always regarded Johnson’s Brexit credentials with some wariness, hoped that Frost could keep the Prime Minister on the straight and narrow in the battle to renegotiate the Northern Ireland Protocol and cast off the shackles of the European Court of Justice. That Frost, a lifelong diplomat well-trained in the Brussels jungle, feels he could no longer serve in such a Cabinet, will only to the suspicion and apprehension with which some in the European Research Group now view him. Brexit hardman Steve Baker’s response thus far has been to retweet praise of Frost and add that ‘I have I think the same complaints.’ Ominous stuff for Johnson, given Baker’s track record in effective backbench whipping operations.
Already other MPs have chosen to break cover with even more direct criticisms. Andrew Bridgen, another longtime thorn in the side of successive Tory premiers, has taken to Twitter to claim: ‘The Prime Minister is running out of time and out of friends to deliver on the promises and discipline of a true Conservative government. Lord Frost has made it clear, 100 Conservative backbenchers have made it clear, but most importantly so did the people of North Shropshire.’ New boy Chris Green added: ‘Lord Frost is such a loss to this government. If we can’t persuade people that freedom is the best way forward, we lose.’
Others in the centre of the party are not so wrapped up in the intricacies of Brexit but saw Frost as bringing some much-needed ballast to Johnson’s famously policy-light sloganeering on Europe and everything else. One 2019-er who supported Leave told Mr S the news was simply a ‘disaster for the party, for the Prime Minister and for delivering Brexit. He is a heavyweight who understands the detail and knows how to negotiate. He will not be easily replaced.’ They added that Frost’s departure meant a more ‘May-esque’ Brexit deal was now likely. A second MP replied simply: ‘Gutted.’
Others suggested that his resignation – ostensibly about Covid restrictions and Net Zero – pointed to wider problems in the Downing Street team and the party’s direction of travel. Another MP said: ‘Frost is a conservative and he thinks the government should be more conservative. Boris needs to start governing as a true conservative urgently, not bang on about things that aren’t priorities for Conservative voters. Most couldn’t give a toss about COP.’ They added that Frost’s resignation was just the latest signal of widespread discontent across the party, following the vaccine passports rebellion and the North Shropshire result.
And then there is a smaller rump of Remainers on the left of the party who see Frost’s exit as a chance to reset relations with Brussels and Dublin over the Protocol. Simon Hoare, the chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Select Committee, has said: ‘Can’t say I’m sorry. He was unsuited to the “doing of politics”, never understood the need for personal rapport or the importance of trust.’ Hoare added that he hoped the successor would be an MP not a peer, enabling them to be grilled in the Commons. Julian Smith, a former Northern Ireland Secretary, tweeted that ‘dogma has run its course’ and ‘the interests of Northern Ireland… now has to be the priority.’
It is that divide in opinion – and the vehemence with which both sides express it – which mean this Christmas is likely to be even less happy for Boris Johnson than his last one.
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