Its cold outside Lord Frost
The excellent Britain in a changing Europe has conducted a long form interview with Lord Frost. These interviews are well worth reading for the background information they provide.
Two facts stand out from Lord Frost’s interview first, that the UK did not realise the EU would treat it as a third party after it left. This is mind boggling, it is so remarkably naive, especially as literally the day ofter the referendum this is exactly what the EU said would happen.
Secondly, Lord Frost insists that the UK just wants what all independent nations want, to set its own rules and therefore it cannot agree to the EU’s SPS standards, among many other things. He does however expect that this independence will eventually be accepted by the EU, which will remove barriers to UK trade.
This is very interesting as it is a pseudo-intellectual explanation of cakeism. We not only want to be free but you have to give us everything we had before. It is also a perfect recipe for continued conflict with the EU, which will never accept cakeism; it would be suicidally stupid to do so. It also means the government cannot and will not listen to the requests and needs of UK business, as their demands would undermine totally the “we are a free and independent nation” line.
This concept of sovereignty is ludicrous and pathetic, it totally fails to understand what it really means and to follow it to its logical conclusion the UK would have to be worse than North Korea and withdraw from all and every form of international cooperation.
But it is the perfect explanation of the hard line Brexiteers mind set. Eternal conflict and economic damage are a price worth paying for a fantasy.
https://jonty.substack.com/