MAIL ON SUNDAY EXCLUSIVE: Brexit minister Lord Frost walks out on Boris: Panic in No10 as PM’s key ally quits, saying he’s ‘disillusioned’ with Covid Plan B restrictions, tax hikes and Net Zero agenda

45 comments

  3. mirror link for those who prefer not to give the Mail a click: https://archive.md/tjM9g (link **updated**)

    –

    >[BBC: Frost’s resignation letter and Johnson’s reply letter](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-59714710)

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    Add this from the Observer:

    >In a letter to the PM released on Saturday night, Frost said he was “disappointed that this plan has become public this evening and in the circumstances I think it is right for me to write to step down with immediate effect”.
    >
    >Frost thanked Johnson and said: “Brexit is now secure … the challenge for the government now is to deliver on the opportunities it gives us. You know my concerns about the current direction of travel.”
    >
    >He also said he was sad the unlocking from Covid restrictions had not proved “irreversible” as promised, and added: “I hope we can get back on track soon and not be tempted by the kind of coercive measures we have seen elsewhere.”
    >
    >He also expressed his wish that the UK would become a “lightly regulated, low-tax” country.
    >
    >In his reply, Johnson he was “very sorry” to have received his resignation.
    >
    >Northern Ireland’s former first minister Arlene Foster described Frost’s resignation as “enormous”. Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesperson Layla Moran said: “The rats are fleeing Boris Johnson’s sinking ship.”
    >
    >Prominent Brexiter Tory Andrew Bridgen called Frost’s exit “a watershed moment”.
    >
    >He told Times Radio it was a “devastating blow” for the government and Johnson and suggested that many MPs would be considering the PM’s future over Christmas.
    >
    >Johnson, he tweeted, was “running out of time and out of friends to deliver on the promises and discipline of a true Conservative government”.
    >
    >He added: “Lord Frost has made it clear, 100 Conservative backbenchers have made it clear, but most importantly so did the people of North Shropshire.”
    >
    >([Observer: Brexit minister’s shock resignation leaves Boris Johnson reeling](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/dec/18/brexit-ministers-shock-resignation-leaves-boris-johnson-reeling))

    and:

    >He was brought in to toughen the UK line with Brussels and place “taking back control” at the centre of talks.
    >
    >Ultimately, it seems this purity of vision for the country outside the EU has led Lord Frost to walk.
    >
    >([Sky News: Analysis: Lord Frost’s resignation marks a chaotic end to possibly Boris Johnson’s worst week as PM](https://news.sky.com/story/lord-frosts-resignation-marks-a-chaotic-end-to-possibly-boris-johnsons-worst-week-as-pm-12499581))

  4. So the guy who negotiated the best EU deal ever only to repeatedly try and renegotiate it because it’s shit, quits just before it has to come into effect in the new year, claiming covid restrictions.

    ….. Yeah

    Fuckoff

  5. It’s starting to feel less like rats fleeing a sinking ship and more like a fatberg starting to unclog itself

  7. Do we know if he’s actually resigned as brexit negotiator or just from the cabinet? He only became a member of the cabinet earlier this year so I assume he can do the job without being in the cabinet, tho it would be weird to half quit the job I suppose.

    Just wondering as I’ve only read about him leaving the cabinet, not his actual brexiting position.

  8. >“It simply isn’t worth jeopardising access to the [EU] single market for the sake of global trade,” wrote David Frost, the then head of the Scotch Whisky Association, in a long-forgotten 2016 pamphlet, arguing the single market could be worth 5 per cent of GDP. Lord Frost is now Johnson’s Brexit minister, chief proselytiser of the opportunities of life outside the EU.
    >
    >([FT: ‘Running out of lives’: How vulnerable is Boris Johnson?](https://www.ft.com/content/c1c61ff4-045f-4072-a83a-eaaac3ecd3d9))

  10. Fantastic. Sit back and watch the Tory shitshow. Rebelling over that idiot actually doing something semi-responsible as far as COVID goes…

    Hopefully they all lose

  11. I’m guessing frosties has seen the ship is very leaky and the life jackets are all ten years past their use by date so has requisitioned the last life boat and is making his way to a non extradition country.

  13. Wait…wait…hold on now….

    This is the man who appears to be disillusioned with **his own bloody deal**!

    And he’s quit?

    Am I meant to be made happy or saddened by this? I am not sure.

    Also, if I can be saddened by a thing why can’t I be happied by another thing? English be whack, yo.

  14. Agressively on the wrong side of several of the most important issues of our time.

    Good fucking riddance this absolute dunce is out of any position of power or responsibility.

  15. So Mr Frost would happily reignited tensions in Northern Ireland and allow the government to get away with its blatant corruption amongst other things, but introduce a pass to prove you’re vaccinated to get into public venues, and ooh that’s a step too far!!

    Lord Wanker.

  16. There are a lot of Tory MPs that are extremely dangerous. Covid restrictions are needed to save lives, basically every scientist agrees and net zero is the same. Some of these Tory extremists start to sound like a death cult ignoring science and letting covid and climate change kill millions.

  17. Thank the lord.

    The endless (and obviously empty) threats to trigger Article 16 of the Withdrawal Agreement were beginning to get on my nerves. It’s actually been sickening to listen to the threats of Unionists in NI over the NI Protocol and this idiot was just enabling them.

  18. Boris is sure getting a *Frosty* reception.

    If Lord Frost was appointed to whore our country out to EU diplomats, does that make him a Frostitute?

  19. Fuck off frost, you’re as much to blame as the twat in charge.

    You’re just as full of shit as the rest of your party.

  20. Boris is getting fucked for every angle and I’m fucking loving it.

    I really hope he doesn’t get sacked, I want him to stay for at least another for two main reasons.

    1. I want him to continue to get batted from pillar to post, I want him to continue making fuck up after fuck up to show all those who voted for him what massive mistake they made.

    2. If they sack him all that will happen we will get somebody like Truss / Petal / Sunak and they will fuck the poor and those in need a lot more then Boris and they will have the advantage of among absolutely everything on him.

    No No No, the Blonde hair sack of shit needs to stay because the longer he stays the better chance the Tories get voted out.

  21. The brexiloons like trump think boris has gone all soft and liberal. They want to dump him for someone who care less about the country than even him.

  22. So what’s his preference, mass death I guess? Goes well with Brexit, I can’t wait to be both poor and ill, great plan for this country.

  23. Everybody who comes into contact with Johnson regrets that day for the rest of their lives.

    He should learn what many have stated for decades.

  24. Aye, the guy couldn’t negotiate with a 5 year old! This is the guy that knowingly destroyed the UK’s trade by billions, against all the advice to the contrary! Surely, that’s worthy of Jail time?

    Ahhh, what am I saying, we’ve got a cunt in the home office who was fired for espionage under the previous PM. A PM who has hard links to Russian intelligence agents and a treasury minister who is involved with laundering money for hedge fund owners.

    https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.businessinsider.com/boris-johnson-photographed-with-russian-spy-who-called-him-friend-2019-11%3famp

    https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/priti-patel-breaks-rules-again-24963905.amp

    https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/30/rishi-sunak-wife-akshata-murty-imm-mauritius-india-tax

  25. They’ll be many more twats like him over the next few decades, all the while the EU just sends interns to the meetings to explain the same shit, over and over again.

  26. I can get being disillusioned with Plan B and Tax restrictions as they are just rich arsehole stereotypes. But how can even they still be against net zero?

  29. Guess he finally realised he had zero credibility with the EU any more, having spent the last year trying to un-negotiate the NIP he negotiated, and doesn’t want to face up to the embarrassment of backing down in public.

  30. Rich Man Sad that he has to pay more.

    Rich Man sad he has to care about environment.

    Rich Man quit because he sad that virus doesnt give a shit he went to posh school.

    Cry me a fucking river. He finger banged the country behind the bins outside the EU and told it it was special, but inside basically gave us economic herpes.

  33. Boris must have wanted to scupper on a high. He knew the fucking mess was gonna blow up in 2022 – wondering why he didn’t split in early 2021, and be labeled a hero by the blue brigade? His missus egged him on or he was liking the perks?

  34. This news item should be setting alarm bells off in Johnson’s head.

    The UK is separating from the EU. The threat to the incumbent leader will *always* come from the more euroskeptic side. It happens with every separation process. A leader comes in making a pitch on how much more distant they think the country ought to be and normally settles for some compromise a little short of that. Within a period of time, though, the country is ready to separate further and that compromise is now considered too close. Either the incumbent leader has to set a new more distant goal and push for it very hard, or another champion for that new more distant goal will emerge.

    For the Euroskeptics in the Conservative party, Frost is Boris’s bellwether on this in the same way as Boris was May’s. While Boris hadn’t resigned, euroskeptics watched and waited with May to see if she would be brought around. “Clearly Boris still thinks she can be.” Likewise, with Frost still in place, euroskeptics would watch and wait to see where Boris would draw the line on letting Art 16 negotiations drag on. “Clearly Frost still thinks he will.”

    Now that Frost has resigned, Boris has a window to establish whether he will be euroskeptic enough. If he says “enough is enough” to the EU and invokes Art 16 he’ll be safe (the wagons will circle around him through anything the EU tries to throw at him). If he goes in the other direction and just tries to take whatever the EU is currently offering, another candidate will emerge to “get Art 16 done” and Boris will find himself in May’s position of having gone from having declared himself a champion for Brexit to acting as the champion for the EU against the euroskeptics. Being “champion for the EU” is not a comfortable place to be. The EU will never become your political ally, they’ll just try to bleed you further.

  39. Isn’t more brexit stuff coming in soon? Last years changes were awful. Overnight every EU customer being charged customs

  41. Well thanks for fucking the country, Frosty the “No” Man. We could have had a great deal but your fighty attitude towards anyone foreign ruined that.

    Shit diplomat, shit ambassador, shit minister. Running for the hills before his shit deal shafts the country even harder than it already is on New Year’s Day.

  42. The oven ready deal has been defrosted.. what a shit show… bozo will be out on his arse soon.. and we could end up with Liz fucking Truss as PM.. this country’s been made into a global laughing stock… fk Brexit and fk brexiters.

  43. 3 May 2015: ‘Britain faces a simple and inescapable choice – stability and strong government with me, or chaos with Ed Miliband’ David Cameron

  44. Now Bozo has served his purpose and reached his sell by date the hard right are subjecting him to a slow torture while they sort out the next figurehead.

  45. Who would have thought that trying to win a negotiation against a $15 trillion economic market (the EU) went so badly that the person in charge would end up resigning

    No one saw that coming.

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