So, how would you feel if the UK demanded that, to protect ourselves, the EU must dynamically harmonise with our national laws set in Westminster and the decisions of our own regulators and courts?Now I assume, many in the EU would simply dismiss the suggestion out of hand. I have no doubt that we will be able to encourage new investment and new ideas in this way – particularly given our plans to boost spend on scientific research, attract scientists and make Britain the best country in the world to do science.There are other broader advantages to running your own affairs. Invited by the Institute for European Studies and the UK Mission to the EU, the Université libre de Bruxelles welcomed, last February 17th, David Frost CMG, UK Prime Minister’s Europe Adviser and Chief Negotiator, for a lecture about the future relationship between his country and the EU. Another, less obvious advantage, is the ability to change those decisions. Yet there is at least as much evidence that the relationship is the other way around – that it is actually productivity which drives trade. The claims that trade drives productivity are often in fact based on the very specific experience of emerging countries opening up to world markets, beginning to trade on global terms after a period of authoritarian or communist government – these are transitions that involve a huge improvement in the institutional framework and which make big productivity improvements almost inevitable. Government negotiator David Frost’s vision for future UK-EU trade looks like a set-up for No Deal on 31 December 2020 when the Brexit transition period ends. Indeed, not only were the EU’s institutions abstract and distant in Britain, we were never really in my view committed to the same goals at all.Some people try to question this now, and argue that Britain had in many way found the sweet spot in the Union – the ideal mix between economic integration and political absenteeism – only to then carelessly cast it aside in 2016 without really thinking about it. I would like to say thank you also to the Institute for hosting me, and your distinguished President, Ramona Coman, for being kind enough to host me here tonight. https://no10media.blog.gov.uk/2020/02/17/david-frost-lecture-reflections-on-the-revolutions-in-europe/Thank you much everyone for that very kind introduction. The strategic problem was that it made it all too clear we never knew what we really wanted to achieve, other than stop other countries doing things that they wanted to do.So given this background I actually find it bizarre that so many people can have told themselves some version of “Britain is winning the arguments” or, I heard this quite recently, that “the EU is in many ways a British project”. Course correction is therefore an important part of good government. Both Brussels and Belgium places I have spent quite a lot of time in over the years. Being responsible for your own policies produces better outcomes.So, that is why, once again, we approach the upcoming negotiations in a pretty, confident fashion. He explained why Brexit is not radical, charted his personal journey from europhile to eurosceptic and called the idea we might remain aligned with EU rules “absurd”.But Frost’s unambiguous approach – poles apart from the position taken by his predecessor Sir Olly Robbins – has not got through to Brussels.
In an age of huge change, being able to anticipate to adapt, and to encourage really counts.
In This is of course exactly how the EU began in a way – “a partnership agreement in a trade … or some other such low concern”, not of pepper and coffee, but coal and steel, and then much more.Well, I think in much of Europe it arguably did, in a way.
It was one of the experiences that really gave me a life long love of the history and art of this part of the world, and indeed I have been indulging it this weekend at the great van Eyck exhibition in Ghent, which is amazing if you have the chance to go and see that. I recognise I am unusual in doing that. In his speech David Frost said he was “negotiating on behalf of Northern Ireland as for every other part of the UK” – but the UK risks leaving Ulster behind if we leave without a deal and don’t challenge the idea Northern Ireland can stay in the EU forever.