David Frost’s protocol diplomacy

As a general rule in post-Brexit politics, when David Frost makes a public intervention on the Northern Ireland protocol, it tends to dampen rather than soothe UK-EU relations. Frost, charged with improving the protocol, is a divisive figure in Brussels who is seen to catch flies with vinegar rather than honey. His speech was expected to be an escalation in the current war of words between the two sides. In the end, the talk itself was slightly less confrontational than expected.

Frost effectively declared the Northern Ireland protocol dead and called on the EU to work with the UK to come up with a new protocol to prevent a hard border on the island of Ireland. Frost argued that both sides had a ‘short, but real, opportunity to put in place a new arrangement, to defuse the political crisis that is brewing, both in Northern Ireland and between us’.