account of “the current direction of travel” of the government, fears over “coercive” COVID measures. It was Lord Frost who described the European nation as the “freest country in the world”, in relation to COVID restrictions. However, this was prior to the newly discovered Omicron variant which has triggered the highest daily coronavirus cases in the UK since the beginning of the pandemic.
Accordingly, Lord Frost was replaced by British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, who is now responsible for Britain’s future relationship with the EU. As she takes over the ministerial responsibility for the UK-EU relationship, Truss is expected to lead negotiations aimed at resolving matters in relations to the Northern Ireland Protocol, Downing Street said.
Over the recent past, the Foreign Secretary has been consistently recognised as the most popular Cabinet minister in opinion polls and has been tipped as a future leadership contender. Following the 2016 referendum on withdrawing the membership of the European Union, Truss changed from being pro-remain advocate to an avid Brexiteer.
Meanwhile, defending his decision on Monday, Lord Frost revealed that he is stepping down since he was unable to support the government’s “coercive policies” on COVID. However, on the matter of Brexit, he said that he and “never disagreed” with the Prime Minister.
“I left the government because, as I think is well-known, I couldn’t support certain policies, most recently on the COVID restrictions and Plan B,” he told Sky News. “And if you’re a minister you have to support collective responsibility, you have to support decisions of the government and I couldn’t, so that’s why I had to leave.”
Lord Frost went to on clarify that his decision was not because he disapproved of PM Johnson’s leadership, as he added that the country has a “great future” ahead of it under the Tory leader “if we can get the policies right”.
