'BREXIT was about bringing politics HOME, about bringing DEMOCRACY BACK TO BRITAIN' | Lord Frost

mark stein live on gb news tv and

simultaneously live on gb news radio

lord frost was britain's chief

negotiator for exiting the european

union he has a slightly amorphous

presence in the public mind because he

was

a diplomat who became a sort of advisor

and then a sort of minister and then a

cabinet minister all while holding down

that brexit portfolio but the gist of it

all seemed to be

that it was the man who mattered and the

office was merely tailored to him being

a minister of the crown of course pales

in comparison to his uh

sometime job as a chief executive of the

scotch whiskey

association so i raise a tumbler

to you

uh in memory of your days uh with the

scotch whiskey guys at that time they

were um they were basically inclined

more toward the eu than you were uh i

think it's true to say

yeah they probably were great to talk to

you mark they probably were uh a bit but

they're one of the few trade

associations that isn't up for just

protecting the industry they want free

trade they want low tariffs they want

lots of exports so in that sense they're

they're part of what global britain is

trying to do now

well you you uh in your last few months

in office were

giving all these rather interesting uh

if under-reported speeches hither and

yon

and uh there were a couple of there were

a couple of phrases there that leapt out

of me i think you said this in lisbon

brexit is about doing things differently

not for the sake of it but because it

suits us and because it creates a

greater variety of alternative futures

that's an intriguing phrase a greater

variety

of alternative futures

what do you mean by that

so brexit was about

bringing politics home it was about

bringing democracy back to britain so we

could set our own rules

make our own destiny in the world again

and that means we've got to win the

arguments here again

for people like me that means winning

the arguments for free markets for

freedom of speech for

um free economies but other people don't

think like that we've got to win those

arguments so in that sense there's a

variety of futures but they're futures

that we choose now as british people

forging our own destiny in the world

making our own our own future and

succeeding or failing on our own two

feet

it's a slightly intriguing phrase to use

in late 2021 though because there's i

doubt there's ever been a time across

the western world

where on the principal issue which is

the covid there was a one-size-fits-all

public policy imposed everywhere except

sweden uh that's kind of

odd isn't it

yeah we've been through a very unusual

period obviously and um

i think when we look back at uh the last

couple of years we look back at the

decisions that have been taken on kovid

we're going to think this was a pretty

major

public policy failure a disaster almost

and

you know we now know that the lockdowns

those sort of npi measures

don't work the evidence for the for them

working is is not at all strong

and um we know that they come with all

kinds of bad consequences and those

that's what we're going to be living

through and one of the things that i

found personally quite unnerving and

worrying about the last

two years is the lack of debates the

squeezing out of alternative views the

inability to kind of talk honestly about

some of the things that have been been

going on and i think there's a

mix of reasons for that but it's

extremely troubling for people who

believe in freedom and we've we really

must draw a line and move on and never

go back

well i think you described yourself as a

free speech

zealot

and uh and that's certainly how i feel

about it a free speech i don't think i'm

a free speech absolutist because i don't

think what we're seeing now i mentioned

earlier this ontario judge who's

who's basically forgiven for forbidden a

dad to criticize the government

in front of his ten-year-old son there

doesn't seem to be a

culture of free speech in countries that

once took that for granted by which i

mean essentially the anglophone

democracies are you concerned about that

yeah i'm extremely concerned i mean when

i was young you used to people hear

people saying all the time it's a free

country when people said something they

didn't agree with and you don't hear

people saying that quite as often as as

i used to and

i do think it's you know there are some

rather strange pathologies being

released in the the last couple of years

that go to the heart of

what

you know what it means to be a western

society what has made us successful is

the ability to debate things to

you know to argue things out to find new

solutions to test things and to move

forward as the evidence

dictates and

you know the the last couple of years

have been very strange from that point

of view not just the the clamp down by

social media companies on unapproved

opinions such as the source of the uh

uh the uh the original uh virus but but

also

what seems to me

you know governments being very slow to

accept new evidence to adjust their

positions as new evidence has come out

communicate it for example they've been

quite slow to acknowledge some of the

you know the fact that the the um the

vaccines don't prevent transmission as

well as the as we thought

they've been quite slow to communicate

effect real information about things

like the case fatality rate basic

information about it the governments

have not pushed out that in a honest and

open way and i find this all extremely

troubling and that's why

that's why i i left government when we

seem to be going back down that track

again on on the plan b

uh ideas last month and i think it's so

important that we repeal the legislation

that we we don't continue with with sort

of zombie policies like the jabs for

jobs think in the nhs we move on and

draw a line and i think for all the

difficulties we've had in this country

we have shown that

in parliament we can still debate things

the debate has never been entirely

crushed here and they've always been mps

who've been willing to speak out and i

think opinion is now turning

and i'm i'm not surprised indeed i'm

really pleased that this country is

following countries like sweden and as

you say florida state and the us that is

really good and it's a tribute to the

strength of our political culture and

we've we've got to keep building on that

well it's it's one part of the uk it's

it's england uh scotland

northern ireland and wales have

generally been far more alarmist on it

and you know i'm sure because we we

certainly get emails and tweets about it

there's a lot of people who can't figure

out why all western governments with

very few exceptions are behaving exactly

the same they're saying well what's

happening is everyone getting their

orders from chairman xi or that klaus

guy at uh davos or what's what's but i

take it you would subscribe to the view

that uh for some reason there's just a

group thing among the western leadership

class generally

yeah i'm not a conspiracy theorist

obviously and i don't think you need to

resort to conspiracies to

explain what's gone on i think you just

look at the pressure on politicians to

um

do what they're doing what is happening

elsewhere to follow suit to take what

seems to be the kind of lowest political

risk approach to things in the short run

and um thereafter to double down on it

it's always difficult for government to

admit it got things wrong to adjust

positions to change and i think we're

we're seeing that uh obviously in the uk

we're seeing

you know that there's always a wish for

uh the devolved administration scotland

wales and so on to differentiate

themselves in some way and i think we're

seeing that additionally as well here

but but i think you just it's just a

form of group think and normal

government behavior and that's that's

why it's so important to keep debating

and talking and putting forward

alternative views so people can pick and

choose and find their own best way

forward

you you said when you resigned that uh

it wasn't it wasn't just for all the

plan b stuff coming back but also about

the general direction of travel

of a supposedly uh conservative

government so i take it

things like net zero

and all that are problematic for you too

yeah i think it's um

it's

only partly a conservative free market

government that's that's the problem and

i don't think conservatives should be

raising taxes in the way that we've

we've decided to i don't think we should

be rushing at the net zero

policy in quite the way that we're we're

doing at the moment climate change is a

problem i don't think it's by any means

the most serious problem the country

faces

we need to be much much more serious

about deregulating sweeping away

regulation changing things doing things

differently so that we we get the

benefits of what we've done if we know

anything from the last 200 years it's

that free markets free economies free

choice ability to pursue your own

destiny and choose your own futures and

provide for your family that produces

prosperity and we move away from that uh

at our peril i think so that was that

was my my concern i'm not saying the

picture is entirely bleak the government

has done some good things like the the

arya science research

uh sort of agency that's being set up

one or two other things but in general i

feel we've we've drifted away from

where the center of gravity of

uh the is of the people that that

elected us

there's a there's a sense among

despairing tories that

a lot of the issues of most concern to

them for example the

migrants arriving on the southern coast

uh every night that

that they're beyond the capability of

politicians to solve them because for

whatever reason

people have concluded there are legal

obstacles to doing anything about it

you've actually had charge of one of

those issues

uh in terms of the irish border

and uh where it has managed to be moved

by very successfully in some ways by

brussels is it is it just that is it

just increasingly hard

uh even for a government with an 80-seat

majority in the commons just to to rouse

itself to push back on these things

so i think modern governments are

enmeshed in a web of treaty commitments

of international commitments of previous

legislation of assumptions and customer

practice about how you do things and in

this country

in particular those treaties are

interpreted by by judges and lawyers and

in-house lawyers in government in in

particular ways and it can be really

difficult to

shake yourself free from that and and

realize that other courses of action are

are possible i think what we have seen

in the last few years and brexit was

part of it but it's not the only part of

it is is a sense that

you know these sorts of webs based on

international institutions ways of doing

things are not necessarily in the

interests of everybody in in in a

country and

what we were trying to do with the

protocol and and what this trust is

still going to be trying to do is is

work within that framework to try and

get to a a better outcome and it is

extremely difficult uh it's uh

it may not be achievable and we may have

to to take different routes

nobody back when

the belfast agreement the good friday

agreement was being negotiated

nobody

in british politics thought it would

have any impact on

membership of the european union

did they i mean that sort of came out of

the blue didn't it it was very cleverly

seized on but it's not something that i

doubt anybody in dublin thought during

that time that it had anything to do

with european union membership

no obviously the the good friday

agreement is is about

peace in in northern ireland and you

know at that time

uh nobody thought that that we might

exit the the european union but that

doesn't make

i i think the problem we've got now is

that the the protocol is actually

undermining the the good friday

agreement it was it was agreed in

extremely difficult circumstances when

um

you know we've been handed a a really

poor draft agreement by our predecessors

that wouldn't go through parliament we

had parliament blocking us leaving

without any agreement without an

agreement so we had to do the best we

could and we prioritized certain things

we

were doubtful i was certainly doubtful

that that some of the protocol would

would would work well um and it needed

really careful handling and it hasn't

got it so

to me it's obvious that the protocol is

going to have to be significantly

renegotiated or replaced that's the

point we've got to and

the only question really is how much

pain are we going to have to go through

how complicated is it going to be how

long is it going to take for the eu

realize that but but it's obvious that's

what's got to happen it's only a matter

of time

let me just let me just put to you uh

the the emails we've had a lot of in one

variation of another the after all the

partygate stuff and the wine bottles in

a suitcase people want you to come back

as boris johnson's chief of staff i take

that i can't even see that so i take it

that's uh that's a kind of non-starter

and the other and the other group of

people say uh see you as a prime

ministerial candidate

along with all these other like your

chum liz trusts and these various other

people who've been mentioned do you see

yourself as a prime ministerial

candidate and is that actually uh

possible i don't know i don't understand

tony blair's wreckage of the house of

lords in full but i do know that

at the time of uh the 14th earl of hume

it wasn't possible to renounce a life

period or a peerage of the first

creation so i'm not sure whether you can

become prime minister but uh are you up

for it

well i must admit i've not looked into

the detail of that and i think that that

is for a good reason which is that it's

uh a long time since this country has

had a a prime minister in the lord's and

i don't think it's what it's crying out

for at the moment as a solution to to

the country's problems so so no i don't

i don't think that's

that's uh the best way of proceeding

look it's only it's only a month since i

left government things a bit soon to be

talking about going back in in any

capacity

never say never to anything but actually

i think the prime minister if he's going

to succeed over the next year or two he

probably needs new people around him and

new ways of doing things and a new

policy prescription those people can can

help him deliver and i'll be very happy

to support that if we can if we can get

on that track

when you give these these speech

certainly the lisbon speech which which

was riffing off

uh a pamphlet of of edmund burke's you

see the sweep of history

we seem to be at one of those hinge

moments where after a period of half a

millennium of euro-american domination

the chinese now see the world returning

to its rightful masters do you think

there's a general crisis

uh just just quickly as a final question

i think there's a general crisis in the

west

yeah i think some of the things that

have made the west strong we're we're

under valuing spirit of free inquiries

standing up for our own values you know

supporting democracy i do think i mean

china is obviously a massive world

player it it always will be and

but but i don't think that i think we

need to be a bit more clear-sighted in

the uk about the extent to which we've

outsourced our own industrial capacity

to china you know the the kind of

influence that china has in the uk in

various ways and i think we need to be a

bit a bit tougher about that and a bit

more clear-sighted and i think the west

needs to generally if we're going to

stick to what's made us succeed uh in

the 21st century as we did in the 20th

absolutely that's very true we need to

be if we're going to survive we need to

be true to ourselves and our best

traditions lord frost

at liberty as resting actors used to say

great to see you we're all out of time