Foreign secretary Liz Truss has been tasked with overseeing the UK’s relations with the EU after Brexit minister Lord David Frost resigned on Saturday evening, citing worries over the government’s “direction of travel”.
The appointment of Truss during such an intense period of negotiations with Brussels comes as Eurosceptic Tory MPs fear that prime minister Boris Johnson is capitulating on post-Brexit trade arrangements in Northern Ireland.
It is understood Johnson is no longer seeking the immediate axing of the European Court of Justice from its role in enforcing the Northern Ireland protocol. Frost had been a vocal critic of the ECJ.
Under the protocol, Northern Ireland remains in the EU single market for goods but checks have been imposed on trade between the region and Great Britain to ensure there is no hard border on the island of Ireland. Its implementation has caused widespread economic disruption and political anger.
Truss, who voted for Remain, tops popularity polls among the Conservative grassroots and is seen as a potential leadership rival to Johnson. One Tory MP joked the new role would “keep her busy and out of the country as much as possible”.
Others suggested the appointment could boost her leadership credentials if the right wing of the party believes she has succeeded in standing up to Brussels. If she fails, her chances of running for the top job could be severely tainted.
Brexit is said to have seriously sapped morale in the Foreign Office after the department was left with no role to play in the UK’s biggest strategic foreign policy decision since 1945.
Allies of Truss welcomed the “monster brief”, which they described a “vote of confidence” from the prime minister. They added that Truss “has form when it comes to negotiating knotty deals” from her previous guise as international trade secretary.
Although Frost criticised the government’s “direction of travel” in his resignation letter, senior government officials said there was a widespread feeling he had also “reached the end of the road” as a negotiator with the EU.
While some Tory officials believed Frost wanted to return to the private sector, others speculated that he was “jumping ship before it was too late”, just as Johnson quit Theresa May’s cabinet in protest at her Brexit strategy in 2018.
The appointment came as prominent Conservatives urged Johnson to present the party with a “fundamental set of changes” to his operations. Frost’s resignation was seen as the latest blow to the prime minister’s wavering authority.
Frost quit “with immediate effect” after expressing concerns about rising taxes and sweeping new coronavirus restrictions imposed by Johnson to combat the spread of the Omicron variant.
“This is the first major break from somebody senior,” said one minister. “But there are a whole heap of personal and policy concerns which everybody shares.
“He [Johnson] has to make a fundamental set of changes to how he operates, if not, we will have another six to 15 months of him tripping up [before he is replaced]. He has completely blown it with the right of the party and colleagues are emotional. He is pleasing nobody. He’s not for anything and that is going to be his downfall.”
No prominent Tories the FT spoke to on Sunday said a leadership challenge was imminent. However, Frost is a popular figure in the party and his concerns reflect growing disquiet on the Tory backbenches.
He has been vocal for the need to avoid what he described in his resignation letter as “coercive” lockdown measures and has opposed Johnson’s decision to increase taxes to their highest levels since the 1950s.
Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen warned that Johnson was “running out of time and out of friends”.
Frost’s resignation came a day after a disastrous parliamentary by-election defeat in North Shropshire, following weeks of allegations of Conservative sleaze and media reports of Downing Street parties held last year when such social gatherings were banned.
Party insiders believe the latest blow to Johnson’s leadership will lead to an increase in any potential leadership challengers setting out their stall. “There will be more positioning”, one said. “You will see a step up in the briefings, which are already pretty explicit”.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak, another leadership contender, had made it known that, alongside Frost, he voiced concerns at Wednesday’s cabinet meeting over the economic costs of further restrictions.
In a reflection of the tensions within the Conservative party, culture secretary Nadine Dorries was removed from a Tory MPs’ WhatsApp group on Saturday evening after defending Johnson following news of Frost’s resignation.
Truss replaces Frost in overseeing UK’s Brexit talks with EU
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