The Brexit minister Lord Frost has resigned from the cabinet in a move that will heap more pressure on a beleaguered Boris Johnson.
At the end of a week when the PM lost a safe Tory seat and faced a rebellion in parliament of a third of his MPs, he now appears to have lost a key ally.
Lord Frost, who negotiated Britain’s exit from the EU, is reported to have handed in his resignation letter to the Prime Minister last week.
But he was convinced to stay on until January, according to the Mail on Sunday.
The senior minister reportedly objected to the introduction of Plan B coronavirus measures, including the implementation of Covid passes to enter large stadiums.
The paper also said that he had become disillusioned by other Government policies including tax rises and the cost of net zero climate change commitments.
Lord Frost has recently been locked in tense negotiations with the EU to try to make changes to the controversial Northern Ireland Protocol.
The UK-side has said the EU is applying the protocol too rigidly and wants to get rid of customs checks between great Britain and Northern Ireland.
On Friday, Lord Frost released a statement in which he said it was ‘disappointing’ that he hadn’t been able to agree a fresh agreement before the end of the year.
He said he had spoken to European Commission vice-president Maros Sefcovic on Friday and negotiations would resume in 2022.
He remarked that while there had been ‘some progress’, it had not been ‘as much, and not as quickly as we had hoped’.
Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner said the news represented ‘a Government in total chaos right when the country faces an uncertain few weeks’.
She tweeted: ‘@BorisJohnson isn’t up to the job. We deserve better than this buffoonery.’
In was has possibly been the worst week for Mr Johnson since becoming PM in 2019, his Conservatives lost the North Shropshire by-election to the Lib Dems on Thursday, days after 100 of his MPs voted against his latest Covid plans.
Conservative backbencher Andrew Bridgen warned Mr Johnson that he was ‘running out of time and out of friends to deliver on the promises and discipline of a true Conservative Government’.
He tweeted: ‘Lord Frost has made it clear, 100 Conservative backbenchers have made it clear, but most importantly so did the people of North Shropshire.’
The news was greeted with alarm in Northern Ireland, where politicians had been hoping Lord Frost would be able to renegotiate the hated protocol.
DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said his departure was a bad sign for Mr Johnson’s commitment to removing the Irish Sea border.
Sir Jeffrey said: ‘This government is distracted by internal strife, and Lord Frost was being frustrated on a number of fronts.
‘We wish David well. We enjoyed a strong relationship with him and his team, but this raises more serious questions for the Prime Minister and his approach to the NI Protocol.’
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