Ex-Brexit minister Lord Frost says he’s ready to renounce his peerage and run for a Commons seat

Former Brexit Minister David Frost admitted he was ready to swap the House of Lords for the ‘real politics’ of the House of Commons today – but refused to stand in an upcoming by-election for the Tories. 

In an appearance on GB News with Nigel Farage he turned down a plea from the former Brexit Party leader turned TV presenter to stand in Tiverton and Honiton.

A by-election is expected in the summer in the seat vacated by Neil Parish, who quit after being outed for watching pornography while in the Commons while surfing the internet on his phone for tractors. 

The peer, who has become an outspoken critic of former boss Boris Johnson over his handling of the economy, said: ‘I don’t think the Lords is a particularly brilliant place to do real politics from. I think you need to be in the Commons to do real politics, that’s obvious.

‘I have only just left Government obviously, I’m contributing ideas and by writing.

I’ll be honest, I don’t think it’s right this time round for all kinds of reasons. But if in future the opportunity comes up and the party wants me to do it, obviously I would be ready to stand down from the seat and do proper politics again.’

In a wide-ranging interview he also said that the Conservative Party ‘in its heart believes in low taxes.

And he took a swing at Foreign Office civil servants who still ‘regret’ Brexit, six years since the referendum. 

‘I think it’s still there, it’s definitely been weakened since 2016, people have got used to the idea.

‘I think what people are finding hard now in the Government and in the civil service is, having to be in charge, when we were in the EU, you didn’t have to think.

 ‘Now, all of a sudden, our destiny is in their own hands, and they’re hesitating a little bit, that’s probably underlining some of the issues we’ve got at the moment.’

His refusal to stand in Devon will quash calls for him to answer the party call. Tiverton and Honiton has a Tory majority of more than 24,000. 

But there are worries that it could none-the-less be lost, in the same way as North Shropshire was taken by the Lib Dems after Owen Paterson quit.

One ally told The Sunday Telegraph earlier this month that he was a ‘proper Conservative’ with ‘star quality’, who could even be a future prime minister.

Last month it was reported that friends had suggested the peer as a potential candidate for Wakefield, where the former incumbent, Imran Ahmad Khan, resigned after being found guilty of sexually assaulting a teenage boy.

Both seats are expected to be contested before Parliament rises for the summer in July.