Lord Frost: Conference Speech

Lord Frost, Minister of State at the Cabinet Office, speaking today at 09:10 at Conservative Party Conference, said:

“Good morning Conference

It is fantastic to be back together in this great city of Manchester

The home of free trade, the home of free markets, and so - and not by coincidence - the city where modern industrial civilisation began.

Conference, let me take you back to when we were last here.

Remember just how difficult things were then.

Brexit was in mortal danger. Our massed opponents - from the Labour Party to the SNP - closed ranks and tried every trick in the book to reverse the referendum result.

Our constitution was being shredded by the Remain establishment.

Parliament was hijacked by the unholy trinity of Keir Starmer, John Bercow and Hilary Benn - destroying our negotiating leverage with the EU with their Surrender Act that stopped us leaving the EU without a deal.

They all said we could not Get Brexit Done.

We disagreed.

I was at the Prime Minister’s side as he refused to bow to the opposition and stood up for the millions of people in his country, Remainers as well as Leavers, who understood it was a test of our democracy to deliver on the referendum result.

They sent a resounding message that they wanted to Get Brexit Done. They overwhelmingly put their trust in the Conservative Party to do it.

And we won the day.

But still our critics did not learn.

They said the pandemic would force us to extend the transition period, and stay in the single market and customs union after all. We left on time.

They said it would take us years to get a trade deal. It took us 10 months.

They said we could never get a deal that freed us from the grip of the EU Court of Justice. We did - and our country is now sovereign again.

When we said we would do something - we did it.

And we got results for one very good reason - we stuck to our principles.

Conference, let me be clear - I will always do that.

When I sat in those gloomy rooms with Michel Barnier for those endless months, I didn’t do it because I had been told to.

I did it because I believed in it.

I left my job as a diplomat and went to work with the man who is now Prime Minister because I didn’t believe that Britain’s destiny was to be subsumed in Greater Europe.

And so I am hugely fortunate and honoured to have been at the right place at the right time - to have been given the chance to deliver the right thing for our country - freedom from control by others.

Conference, that work has only just begun. Brexit is just a first step. It’s the beginning of a great voyage for our country.

Yes there will be some rough waters along the way.

But we will choose for ourselves how to steer our ship.

We know the British people will always take the right decisions to ensure that the whole United Kingdom becomes wealthier, richer, and happier.

Conference, I want to say a particular word about one part of our United Kingdom - Northern Ireland.

The Northern Ireland Protocol is not working and needs to change.

Yes, we agreed the Protocol in that difficult autumn of 2019. We knew we were taking a risk - but a worthy one, in the cause of peace and protecting the Belfast / Good Friday Agreement. It was the right thing to do. It ended constitutional crisis. It meant our country could leave the EU, whole, free, and with real choices about the future.

Of course we wanted to negotiate something better. If it had not been for the madness of the Surrender Act, we could have done so. And we worried right from the start that the Protocol would not take the strain if not handled sensitively.

As it has turned out - we were right. The arrangements have begun to come apart even more quickly than we feared. Thanks to the EU’s heavy handed actions, cross-community political support for the Protocol has collapsed. The Protocol itself is now undermining the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement. Businesses, political parties, the institutions, and indeed all in Northern Ireland face instability and disruption.

We can still solve these problems. I set out in July a set of proposals that would establish a new balance for a lasting future - and I will soon be sending a new set of legal texts to the EU to support them.

We await a formal response from the EU to our proposals. But from what I hear I worry that we will not get one which enables the significant change we need.

So I urge the EU to be ambitious. It’s no use tinkering around the edges. We need significant change.

If we can agree something better, we can get back to where we wanted to be - an independent Britain with friendly relations with the EU based on free trade.

But we cannot wait for ever. Without an agreed solution soon, we will need to act, using the Article 16 safeguard mechanism, to address the impact the Protocol is having on Northern Ireland. That may in the end be the only way to protect our country - our people, our trade, our territorial integrity, the peace process, and the benefits of this great UK of which we are all part.

Conference, either way, this country is moving forward fast.

The day after our Brexit vote, the New York Times ran its front page lead under the headline “British stun the world with vote to leave the EU.”

I like that headline. I like it when we do things in this country which stun the world. Things which make others look at us as an example to follow.

We have done that often enough in our history - here in Manchester above all, where the modern world began - and we are going to do it again.

Conference, the Labour Party can’t deny they failed to stop Brexit.

But they still don’t like it. They still haven’t come to terms with it.

So now they have to find something new to say. They claim “Brexit isn’t working”. But we know that is simply not true.

We are seeing incredible steps forward. We are putting in place:

A new immigration system.

A new system of support for agriculture, designed for us not the vasty fields of France.

New Free Trade Agreements with our friends around the world.

A new, modern, simple subsidy system.

A new international sanctions regime.

A new data regime, best in class, moving on from the EU’s clunky GDPR

New technologies in transport.

New rules for GMOs and gene editing.

A world class regime for medical licensing and medical devices.

A new Artificial Intelligence framework setting the standard for the world to follow.

And more.

And of course - we have seen a world beating vaccine roll out which has saved thousands of lives.

It simply would not have happened if we had stayed in the EU.

Conference, we are already becoming a very different country.

This Conservative Party under Boris Johnson’s leadership is taking us forward.

We know that there is only one way to prosperity - free enterprise.

We have not successfully rolled back the EU’s frontiers from our country with Brexit, only to import a European economic model after all this time.

All history, all experience, shows that democratic countries with free economies, which let people keep the money they have earned, make their own decisions, and manage their own lives, are not just richer but also happier and more admired by others.

That is where we need to take this country.

The opportunities are huge.

The long bad dream of our EU membership is over.

The British Renaissance has begun.

As our great national poet said about the last renaissance:

“Suddenly all men arise, to the noise of fetters breaking

And everyone smiles at his neighbour and tells him his soul is his own.”

Let’s work together in that spirit. Let’s lead this country to a new future of freedom. And in doing so, together, we will win.

Thank you.”