{"id":121194,"date":"2023-11-01T14:59:40","date_gmt":"2023-11-01T14:59:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gendermyn.com\/?p=121194"},"modified":"2023-11-01T14:59:40","modified_gmt":"2023-11-01T14:59:40","slug":"lord-frost-fires-back-at-civil-servants-brexit-swipe-during-covid-inquiry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gendermyn.com\/politics\/lord-frost-fires-back-at-civil-servants-brexit-swipe-during-covid-inquiry\/","title":{"rendered":"Lord Frost fires back at civil servant’s Brexit swipe during Covid inquiry"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dominic Cummings’ WhatsApps read at Covid inquiry<\/h3>\n

Lord Frost has defended Boris Johnson\u2019s Government\u2019s focus on Brexit in the lead-up to the pandemic.<\/p>\n

He was forced to after Britain\u2019s most senior female civil servant told the Covid inquiry that Mr Johnson solely focused on Brexit to the exclusion of all else once entering No. 10.<\/p>\n

Giving evidence to the inquiry, Helen McNamara argued that Britain had been on the \u201cback foot\u201d when the pandemic hit in March 2020.<\/p>\n

However she did echo Matt Hancock, in arguing that the civil service\u2019s planning for a \u2018No Deal Brexit\u2019 was \u201cimmensely valuable\u201d when the Government was forced into its emergency pandemic response.<\/p>\n

Lord Frost has now hit back, saying \u201cof course\u201d Brexit was the sole focus of Government in the latter half of 2019 – though it didn\u2019t have to be that way.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: <\/strong> Senior civil servant says Dominic Cummings\u2019 C-word attack was \u2018horrible to read’<\/strong><\/p>\n

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He said: \u201cWe might not have had to, if the previous government, ministers *and* officials, had not bungled the negotiation so badly so that the referendum result could not be delivered.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were in the biggest constitutional crisis for a hundred years. That obviously had to be the government’s overwhelming priority.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018No deal\u2019 Brexit planning certainly revealed many of the systemic weaknesses that became even more obvious during the pandemic, and even enabled us to build plans that turned out to be useful (eg on drugs supply), but it certainly did not cause them.\u201d<\/p>\n

He later argued with an X user who accused him of being the \u201cabsolute height of arrogance to suggest that a Brexit deal\u2026 was more important than the lives of British citizens\u201d.<\/p>\n

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