The UK’s former chief Brexit negotiator has urged ministers to “fully and enthusiastically embrace the advantages of Brexit”, portraying a private meeting of prominent former leave and remain campaigners to discuss how to move on from Brexit in the national interest as a plot to undermine the deal he struck with the EU.
The two-day summit, revealed by the Observer on Sunday, was attended by the government minister Michael Gove, who is a former co-leader of the official Brexit campaign, and senior members of Keir Starmer’s shadow cabinet.
They were joined by diplomats, defence experts and the heads of some of the biggest businesses for a discussion under the title: “How can we make Brexit work better with our neighbours in Europe?”
On Monday, David Frost referred to it as “a further piece of evidence that many in our political and business establishment want to unravel the deals we did to exit the EU in 2020 and to stay shadowing the EU instead”.
Attempting to explain the presence of prominent Brexit backers at the meeting alongside former remain supporters, he told the Daily Mail: “That’s why so many of those responsible for Theresa May’s failed backstop deal were there, while I and those who actually delivered the Brexit agreements were not.”
The Observer revealed that a confidential introductory statement acknowledged there was now a view among “some at least, that so far the UK has not yet found its way forward outside the EU” with Brexit “acting as a drag on our growth and inhibiting the UK’s potential”.
A source who was there told the paper it was a “constructive meeting” that addressed the problems and opportunities of Brexit but which dwelt heavily on the economic downside to the UK economy at a time of global instability and rising energy prices.
But Lord Frost said: “Brexit doesn’t need ‘fixing’. It needs this Conservative government, elected with a huge mandate on a Brexit programme, to fully and enthusiastically embrace its advantages instead of leaving the field to those who never wanted it in the first place.
“I and millions of others want the government to get on with that instead of raising taxes, deterring investment and pushing public spending to its highest level for 70 years.”
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His comments come after the UK and EU reiterated their commitment to finding “joint solutions” to differences around the post-Brexit Northern Ireland protocol. There is mounting speculation that a deal is finally on the cards to reduce red tape on trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
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