The government must stop trying to re-enact old battles with Brussels and focus instead on building new relations
It is usually worth paying more attention to what ministers do than what they say, especially when the subject is Europe. At the start of this week, the Brexit minister, David Frost, told the House of Lords that Britain was unafraid to invoke article 16 – the emergency suspension clause – of the trade and cooperation agreement (TCA) that Boris Johnson signed with Brussels last year. Days later, the government deferred the introduction of customs controls on goods being imported from the continent.
The message is consistent to the extent that Lord Frost’s comments and waiving of border regulation both demonstrate that the UK was unready for Brexit on the terms it negotiated. But there is a difference between menacing rhetoric that is meant to assert UK power and policy action that surrenders border control.