Plan to “save Boris”
Ex-Brexit Minister finds Johnson too social
2/19/2022, 7:06 p.m
Former Brexit Secretary Frost is working on a plan to save Boris Johnson. However, he is less bothered by “Partygate” than by the British prime minister’s supposedly social-democratic impulses. Meanwhile, he takes care of himself and shines in the Ukraine crisis with EU bashing.
Conservative former Brexit Secretary David Frost has released a plan to “save Boris, the Conservative party and the country”. Frost, who negotiated the Brexit trade pact with the EU in months of discussions, wrote in the Telegraph that Prime Minister Boris Johnson is currently at risk of losing popular support. His government seems unable to decide whether to be a “traditional low-tax Tory government or to transform Britain into a European social democracy”.
Frost’s core demand is to abolish as much state intervention and spending as possible after Brexit and to build a competitive, innovative economy with the lowest possible taxes. “Our goal must be for the whole world to look at Great Britain and say: ‘Yes, they are on the right track,'” wrote the politician, who in future wants to be a regular columnist for the ultra-conservative newspaper. Frost resigned from the British cabinet shortly before Christmas when Boris Johnson slightly tightened the corona measures again because of the highly contagious omicron variant, thereby provoking a rebellion in his own party.
Brisk tones in the Ukraine crisis: “Faster than our friends in the EU”
Frost is less interested in the Prime Minister’s alleged misconduct at Downing Street lockdown parties, which could potentially lead to a vote of no confidence in Johnson: “Whatever happens with ‘Partygate’ things have to get going again,” he writes.
The British prime minister is currently making bold statements about the Ukraine crisis. “There will be a cascade of false claims,” Johnson said in his speech at the Munich Security Conference. Russia is “spinning a web of misinformation” to justify a possible invasion of Ukraine. In the past few days there has already been false information about the alleged withdrawal of troops and other events. “We knew it was coming. We’ve seen it before. Nobody should be fooled,” Johnson warned.
When asked what vision he had for his now independent country’s cooperation with the European Union, Johnson said: “I want the closest possible cooperation.” However, he also allowed himself the dig that his country had sometimes acted faster and more aggressively than “our friends from the EU” when it came to sanctions or warnings.