The government of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has suffered yet another casualty. David Frost, minister of brexit, resigned from his post a week ago, according to information released by the tabloid The Mail on Sunday and confirmed by Downing Street this Saturday night (18th). He would have left the government for being at odds with the way Boris has been managing the control of the pandemic in the European country.
According to a source who spoke on condition of anonymity, Frost would already be dissatisfied with the development of the brexit, as the country struggles to sew trade agreements after separation from the European Union (EU), and with the environmental policies adopted by Boris. The last straw, however, was the so-called Plan B, a package of measures introduced by the prime minister to curb Covid’s progress.
A former diplomat, Frost spearheaded the brexit deal, but soon found himself embroiled in conflicts such as the turbulent attempt to negotiate with Northern Ireland. The minister had been expressing public dissatisfaction with the current course of British politics after the split from the EU.
“We have not been able to successfully separate borders so that we are now importing the same European model,” he said in November. “We cannot continue as we were before the Brexit and import the European social model because we will not be successful,” he added.
In a letter from Frost published in full by the BBC public broadcaster, the minister says he regrets the leak of his resignation. He claims that he would leave office in January, as previously agreed with the government, but that, due to the publicity of the information, he will leave immediately. After thanking Boris for the partnership, he says the brexit was a success — but reiterates his criticisms.
“Brexit is now safe,” he says. “The challenge for the government now is to seize the opportunities it offers us, and you know my concerns about the current direction. I hope we move as quickly as possible to where we need to go: an entrepreneurial economy, with low regulation and low taxation, in forefront of modern science and economic change.”
The departure of the minister from the brexit adds another layer to the crisis that has flared up in Boris Johnson’s government over the past few weeks. The United Kingdom, which has already registered 25,000 cases of Covid by the omicron variant and has 65 hospitalized patients with the strain, has been the scene of a crisis within the Conservative Party, to which the prime minister belongs.
Earlier this week, the British Parliament approved the new package of measures by Boris, which establishes, among other things, the requirement of proof of vaccination for access to certain spaces. Had it not been for the Labor opposition, however, the content would have been vetoed, as dozens of Boris’s supporters opposed him in the vote.
The Conservative government has also seen an aide and Cabinet Secretary Simon Case step down in recent days after their names were involved in parties staged in Downing Street, seat of government, at Christmas last year, when severe restrictions were in place for contain the Covid pandemic.
Some figures have already begun to speak out about Boris’s latest setback—Frost’s departure. Jenny Chapman, a Labor lawmaker, said the government is in chaos. “The country needs leadership, not a prime minister who has lost the confidence of his parliamentarians and his cabinet.”
Nigel Farage, leader of the far-right Brexit Party, said that Frost is leaving the government because “he is a conservative and a true supporter of brexit. “But Boris is neither,” he added.
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