Morning View: Liz Truss' creaking government is a concern for Northern Ireland

The new chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, acted decisively yesterday to reassure the financial markets and attempt to stabilise the government. Almost all of the tax cuts proposed by Kwasi Kwarteng have been cancelled, while the Treasury will review the energy bills scheme, with a view to cutting costs and targeting help at struggling households.

It remains to be seen whether this action will be enough to save the prime minister, Liz Truss. If the markets calm and the economy stabilises, it will be as a result of her u-turns on the flagship policies that she wanted to define her leadership.

None of this uncertainty and instability at Westminster is likely to be good for Northern Ireland, as we try to reach a resolution on the protocol. Even if it was open to concessions, which was always far from clear, the EU is unlikely to offer them to a struggling PM who may not see out the month.

Meanwhile, the Taoiseach, Micheál Martin visited Belfast yesterday to meet the political parties. While the prevailing mood of anglophobia in Dublin during his term in office made it difficult to be consistent, the southern prime minister at least softened his government’s anti-British rhetoric and attempted to be mindful of unionists’ concerns.

Unfortunately, in December he will be replaced by Leo Varadkar, who previously used bashing London as a way of bolstering his domestic support.

The very presence of the Republic’s politicians, during another crisis at Stormont, raises issues about the ways in which the Belfast Agreement’s three strands have been disregarded.

With a weak, punch drunk PM in Westminster, and the end of a spell of pragmatism from the Dublin premier beckoning, any optimism about an effective early deal on the protocol could well be fading.