Henry McDonald: New Prime Minister Liz Truss picks a team prepared to tackle EU

Commentators and correspondents searching for metaphors in their coverage of Liz Truss’ entry to 10 Downing Street were understandably obsessed with the weather.

Until the rain suddenly halted as Ms Truss’ convoy sped towards Whitehall they were fixated on storms, deluges, dark clouds and downpours as portents of turbulent times ahead for the new Prime Minister.

They missed an obvious metaphor staring straight in front of them outside arguably the most famous door in the world - the lectern where Ms Truss would deliver her first speech as PM.

Its support base, with its wooden, jagged, brick-like structure appeared like a pile of precariously stacked Jenga bricks which at any time could collapse onto the ground.

As the game goes, Jenga structures can be extremely fragile and prone to crash if a player is careless in pulling one brick out or placing another on top of the last.

Fragile is certainly the condition not only of the UK economy on the day Ms Truss replaced Boris Johnson as PM but also perhaps the British State itself.

Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP remain undaunted in their demands for a second Scottish independence referendum.

In Northern Ireland, nationalist and republican ginger groups are planning an “autumn offensive” when they will try and ramp up pressure for a Border Poll.

Yet in her four-minute address in Downing Street on Tuesday evening, Liz Truss once again failed to mention the integrity and unity of the UK, let alone Northern Ireland or the Protocol.

Perhaps the Prime Minister will leave the constitutional questions until after she has tackled the number one immediate issue facing everyone across all four nations of the UK - the energy/cost-of-living crisis.

Unionists, however, have no need to panic especially given the hours following Ms Truss entering into Number 10. The surprising appointment of the “fierce Eurosceptic” Chris Heaton-Harris as Northern Ireland Secretary in a Cabinet packed with fellow Eurosceptics suggests she has picked a team that is prepared to robustly tackle Brussels over the Protocol and defend tenaciously the legislation which could overturn it.