One of the big priorities for the new Prime Minister is dealing with the situation in Northern Ireland. There’s no time for procrastination as the existing arrangements which suspend checks on goods travelling between Northern Ireland and Great Britain expire on 15 September. Liz Truss has made very clear that she is serious about getting the problems with the Protocol fixed and that while her favoured outcome is a negotiated settlement, she is also prepared to be tough. One of her newest supporters is Conor Burns, Minister of State for Northern Ireland, who only declared for the Foreign Secretary at the weekend but who is in Dublin at the moment trying to see if there is greater appetite for a settlement.
This policy, this legislation will pay out if we fail to get a negotiation and that will be a failure of British and European statecraft
Burns has met former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.
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