Ben Habib: Boris Johnson and David Frost knew we weren’t leaving EU as one United Kingdom

Use of the word ‘lie’ is something from which I normally shy away, yet I appreciate that I have used it liberally in this article.
The then UK chief trade negotiator, David Frost looks on as Prime Minister Boris Johnson signs the EU-UK Trade deal at 10 Downing Street, on December 30, 2020. How stupid they were to think the damaging effects of the Irish Sea border would see to its own demise. Ceding NI was far more likely. Photo: Leon Neal/PA WireThe then UK chief trade negotiator, David Frost looks on as Prime Minister Boris Johnson signs the EU-UK Trade deal at 10 Downing Street, on December 30, 2020. How stupid they were to think the damaging effects of the Irish Sea border would see to its own demise. Ceding NI was far more likely. Photo: Leon Neal/PA Wire
The then UK chief trade negotiator, David Frost looks on as Prime Minister Boris Johnson signs the EU-UK Trade deal at 10 Downing Street, on December 30, 2020. How stupid they were to think the damaging effects of the Irish Sea border would see to its own demise. Ceding NI was far more likely. Photo: Leon Neal/PA Wire

I do so because I believe that it is an accurate description of what we told by the government about the Northern Ireland Protocol.

David Frost, who was chief negotiator for exiting the EU, admitted in the House of Lords on September 11 that he and the then prime minister Boris Johnson expected their Irish Sea border to collapse as Great Britain diverged from Northern Ireland. This is as repugnant as it is stupid.

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His admission also confirms what I would say we all knew already, that they lied to us in 2019. Page 5 of the Conservative manifesto put together by these gentlemen after the Northern Ireland Protocol had been negotiated states:

Ben Habib leaves Belfast High Court in June 2021 after a judge ruled the protocol lawful. He says: 'It is not as if the government did not have a solution to the problem. It  was this: to concede the judicial review we had brought against them'Ben Habib leaves Belfast High Court in June 2021 after a judge ruled the protocol lawful. He says: 'It is not as if the government did not have a solution to the problem. It  was this: to concede the judicial review we had brought against them'
Ben Habib leaves Belfast High Court in June 2021 after a judge ruled the protocol lawful. He says: 'It is not as if the government did not have a solution to the problem. It was this: to concede the judicial review we had brought against them'

“The country will leave the EU as one United Kingdom.”

They must have known this not to be true. Northern Ireland was being left behind.

Think about this for a moment. A government’s first duty is to protect the country. Instead, our prime minister and his chief negotiator wilfully partitioned it and, Lord Frost’s admission shows, were not honest about doing so, in the hope the problem would fix itself. An act of unparalleled constitutional self-harm.

At the time, Johnson, Michael Gove, Frost and others often said any teething troubles with the Withdrawal Agreement would be resolved later. I believe that that too was a lie. Frost has revealed they were not going to take any action. They were apparently going to wait for the Irish Sea border to make things so bad in Northern Ireland that the Protocol would collapse.

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What sort of government minister knowingly establishes a regime to damage the welfare of people resident in part of the country? Answer: a minister who is in equal measure negligent and contemptuous of the people.

When these gents said:

• the Internal Market Bill, trailed in 2020, would resolve the problem;

• the future trading arrangements with the EU would resolve the problem;

• the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill would resolve the problem; and

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• they would not hesitate to invoke Article 16 in the Protocol to suspend it;

they were not telling the truth.

They did none of the above and, it has now been made clear, had no intention of doing them.

Even after their dishonesty was revealed, by the courts adjudicating the protocol to have breached the Acts of Union, they went on peddling untruths.

In June 2021 Johnson famously confirmed to the DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson in the Commons that the Acts of Union are intact – at the same time as his lawyers were arguing in court that they had been breached.

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I know politicians habitually make promises with no intention of keeping them but this lot were lying about the wilful damage they had done to the constitutional foundations of our country.

There can be few political lies worse than that.

And how stupid they were to think the damaging effects of the Irish Sea border would see to its own demise. By far the likelier outcome would have been the ceding of Northern Ireland. That is where we are heading.

It is also not as if they did not have a painless and immediate solution to the problem. It was a solution I conceived, the efficacy of which had been confirmed by John Larkin (former Attorney General for Northern Ireland).

The solution was communicated to No 10 Downing Street in at least four successive attempts by Sir Jeffrey, Baroness Hoey and two other people to persuade the prime minister to do the right thing.

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The solution was this: to concede the judicial review we had brought against the government. Had he done so, the protocol would have become domestically unlawful ab initio. And, under international law governing treaties, Her Majesty’s Government would have had the right to terminate it. In one move Northern Ireland would have been saved.

So, Lord Frost, I believe that you are being less than frank with people when you say you expected the protocol to end. Johnson turned his back on the easiest of easy solutions. There was no intent to remove the Irish Sea border.

The dishonesty did not stop with Johnson and Frost leaving office. The current incumbent of No 10 has picked up the mantle with just as much zeal, aided and abetted by his two Igors, Steve Baker and Chris Heaton Harris.

No, Mr Sunak, the Windsor Framework is not a solution to the protocol. Stop trying to hoodwink us again.

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The framework is the protocol, and worse. There is no way to eject it, the green lanes do not work and the Stormont brake is no brake at all.

Northern Ireland remains subject to foreign laws, made by a foreign legislature and enforced by a foreign court.

My message to all those responsible for the protocol and its successor, the Windsor Framework: stop the lies and fix the mess you made.

It will not resolve itself, no matter how much the people of Northern Ireland suffer – and suffer they will.

Ben Habib is a businessman and former Brexit Party MEP