British foreign secretary and Conservative leadership candidate Liz Truss says she would prefer a “negotiated solution” on the Northern Ireland protocol. Minister of State at the Northern Ireland Office Conor Burns insists he too would prefer negotiation to confrontation. “There remains,” he said, “an acute determination on the part of the UK government and both the contenders for the Conservative Party leadership – one of whom will be prime minister shortly – that we resolve this by negotiation.” Burns was in Dublin yesterday testing the water.
Officials and observers in Brussels and Dublin would find that expression of eagerness to negotiate encouraging were it not so difficult to believe. It is a mantra heard all too regularly from London although evidence of movement in the British position has been simply non-existent. And on Friday the British papers were awash with “briefings” from Truss’s camp which were interpreted widely – almost certainly wrongly, say those close to the process – as an indication that she is inclined to up the ante dramatically in the few days after her election by invoking Article 16 of the protocol allowing its unilateral suspension.
A close parsing of the briefings suggests, however, that the Truss camp was simply reiterating the other familiar Tory mantra, that Article 16 remains an option on the table. Critics worry it risks sparking a trade war with the EU and potentially even the suspension of the entire Trade and Cooperation Agreement. Advisers are believed to have suggested to her, however, that triggering it could provide a stop-gap, preserving the status quo on cross-Irish Sea trade, while the legislation to unilaterally rewrite the protocol, the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill, passes through the House of Commons. That is not expected until the end of the year at the earliest.
What Truss will do on the protocol when elected is not clear, but the evidence of continued strong support for the Bill within her party rank and file, including from her rival, former chancellor Rishi Sunak, suggests a bumpy road ahead.