Eliot Wilson Eliot Wilson

What Lord Frost gets wrong about the Tories’ future

Lord Frost (Credit: Getty images)

It hardly feels like a serious discussion of the Conservative party’s future until Lord Frost has indicated where the leadership is going wrong. As Steerpike reported this weekend, the architect of the Brexit withdrawal agreement and former Scotch whisky salesman delivered a speech at the annual Margaret Thatcher Freedom Festival, and had some advice on the future relationship between the Conservatives and Reform UK.

It is perplexing to understand how Lord Frost has become some kind of sage of conservative thought

Frost argued that the door should be left open to some kind of electoral pact or agreement between the two parties closer to the next general election in 2028 or 2029. Whatever the formal framework, he said, the Conservatives and Reform UK would have to ‘work together at some point’:

If we get to within 12 months of another general election and we’re still divided 50/50 or thereabouts, then obviously pacts, arrangements will have to be on the agenda because we can’t go into an election divided again and losing.

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Written by
Eliot Wilson

Eliot Wilson was a clerk in the House of Commons 2005-16, including on the Defence Committee. He is a member of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).

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