Liz Truss lays down her red lines

I have watched the recent Conservative and Unionist Party hustings in Perth and Belfast with great interest.

Liz Truss has stated that she is a child of the Union having attended school in Paisley and in Leeds. I too am a child of the Union being born in an Army hospital in West Germany, my mother being from rural County Tyrone, my father from Leicestershire and having lived in most parts of the UK.

In Perth, there were some ideas on strengthening the Union such as expanding Parliamentary privilege to MSPs but to be honest there needs to be much more. The Minister for the Union and the Union unit need to be given some teeth, and I would like to see an annual Unionist convention involving all pro-Union parties and organisations.

In Belfast, one chink that was noticeable was when Liz Truss was asked questions about Westminster imposing abortion laws in Northern Ireland to which she disagreed and claimed UK laws should apply across the UK equally. This was odd on a number of fronts. Firstly, such an argument is entirely counter to the reasoning for devolution.

Secondly, as pointed out by the second question, Northern Ireland abortion laws are now far and away beyond the current abortion laws in the rest of the UK.

However, by far the most critical moment of the entire leadership hustings came in Belfast when Liz Truss ruled out a compromise deal with the EU that falls short of the objectives of the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill.

“I will not accept anything that doesn’t deliver on the key issue. Making sure that UK courts are the ultimate arbiter, making sure we have free flowing East-West trade, making sure that the people of Northern Ireland can benefit from the tax benefits delivered by the UK government, but also sorting out the regulatory system so businesses can operate to UK law or EU law depending on where the export market is.”

Up until this moment, both Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss have allowed wriggle room for a compromise with the EU — many suggesting the red and green channel idea was likely OK but other elements of the Protocol Bill were not. But now Liz Truss has quite stridently laid down red lines as part of her leadership pitch.

This invariably means (should Truss win) either the EU expands the mandate of Maroš Šefčovič for negotiations on the Protocol or, as seems likely, the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill passes into law which leads to tit-for tat “measures”. Only the latter will restore the institutions of the Belfast / Good Friday Agreement.

Rishi Sunak left himself much more room for manoeuvre.

Alan Day Coagh