Liz Truss’s “warm” words had failed to get results in Northern Ireland Protocol talks with the EU, Lord Frost, her predecessor as Brexit negotiator, said on Wednesday.
Lord Frost said the Government should now trigger Article 16 of the treaty that created the Irish Sea border and unilaterally override the protocol, which would anger Brussels and risk a trade war.
“It’s time to put our own interests first, the integrity of UK first, the British people first and I hope the Government will decide to do so,” he said, denying that triggering Article 16 would break international law.
The former Cabinet minister – who negotiated the protocol – said the UK signed it under duress during talks that were “not the finest hour” of British diplomacy.
Ms Truss, the Foreign Secretary, attempted to “reset” relations with the EU when she took over negotiations on the protocol from Lord Frost at the end of December.
Threats to trigger Article 16 were dialled down and she invited Maros Sefcovic, the EU’s negotiator, to her country grace and favour residence Chevening House for talks.
“On the protocol issue, I think she has found what I found. Whether the words from the UK are warm or not warm, and whatever our posture, EU interests remain as they are,” Lord Frost said at an event at the Policy Exchange think tank in London.
“She’s made, I think, no more progress really than than we made last year in the negotiations. I’m in no way surprised by that. More broadly, I think she’s doing an excellent job.”
While Ms Truss gets on well with Mr Sefcovic, The Telegraph understands she thinks the EU has been unreasonable and not pragmatic enough in the negotiations given the risk to peace and stability in Northern Ireland.
Unionists fear the protocol is driving a wedge between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK, while the Government argues that checks on British goods entering the province to ensure they meet EU standards are having a chilling effect on trade.
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“I think Unionist criticism is best directed at the EU and the Commission who put us in this position in the first place,” Lord Frost said, responding to the suggestion that the Tories sold out the DUP by agreeing the deal.
He blamed the protocol for bringing politics in Northern Ireland to “breaking point” ahead of the Stormont elections on May 5 and said the European Commission had destroyed Unionist consent for the treaty when it threatened to use Article 16 to enforce a Covid vaccine export ban at the start of the year.
Lord Frost said that he had no choice but to agree to the protocol as Brussels turned the screws in the hope that Brexit would be reversed in the last days of 2019.
He said British negotiators were “actually shut” in a meeting room in the commission’s Berlaymont HQ until 2am on the final night of the talks while the EU executive debated whether to sign off the agreement.
“We put up with all this treatment because we wanted to get things done,” Lord Frost said, adding that the alternative was the UK remaining in the EU.
“So we faced a choice, take this deal and try and get it through Parliament and sort out the detail in 2020 [trade talks] or walk away, fail to deliver Brexit on October 31 and almost certainly see the Government collapse.”
He accused Ireland of choosing to protect EU interests and its place in the Single Market over “working collaboratively with the UK to find solutions that can work in Northern Ireland”.
‘Trying to retrospectively rewrite history’
But Neale Richmond, the Dublin Rathdown MP and Fine Gael European Affairs spokesman, told The Telegraph: “Once again we have the man who stepped off the pitch trying to retrospectively rewrite the course of history and try to cast blame for his perceived failings on the EU.
“There certainly is hope on the European side that the change in leadership on the British side might side may allow for a more proactive and productive approach,” he said of Ms Truss.
The European Commission has repeatedly pointed to its willingness to change its own laws to ensure the continued supply of medicines to Northern Ireland as proof of its willingness to be flexible.
It has offered to cut a large number of checks in return for bolstered market surveillance to ensure British goods are not crossing the invisible border into EU member Ireland.
