Frost: Dynamic Alignment On EU SPS Rules "Simply A Non-Starter"

Anton Spisak, policy lead at the Tony Blair Institute think tank tweets on comments from UK Cabinet Office minister and gov't point man on EU-UK relations Lord Frost and Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Brandon Lewis at a Policy Exchange event.

• "Lord Frost tells the Policy Exchange event this morning that the UK government will set out its approach to the Northern Ireland Protocol "in the next week or two" and "before the summer recess". A lot of emphasis from Lord Frost and Brandon Lewis on the impacts of the Protocol: societal impacts and trade diversion. They say that their "understanding" of the Protocol, at the time when it was signed, was that it was going to work differently. It sounds to me like a government lawyer, somewhere in the deep corridors of Whitehall, has been instructed to prepare an Article 16 case. Lord Frost says that dynamic alignment to EU SPS law, as a solution to the NI Protocol problems, is "simply a non-starter". Also says that they suggested an alternative "based on equivalence" and haven't yet been able to discuss it in depth with the Commission."
• Lisa O'Carroll at The Guardian tweets "Lord Frost says things have changed considerably since January - in terms of impact of protocol on the ground - but says no ultimatum to EU. "There's no deadlines here. We're not putting something on table and saying, take it or leave it or [you] must work to this [particular] timetable"