Ben Lowry: Threats to the Union were largely ignored by Northern Ireland Tories at the local Conservative leadership hustings

They were angry with the prime minister over the failure to support the local party properly.

This week the two candidates to replace Mr Johnson as Tory leader, and thus as the next inhabitant of Downing Street, were at the same venue where the PM was target of an uncomfortable grilling, the Culloden hotel, to be questioned by that same group of local party members.

It was part of the UK-wide hustings meetings in which Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss have been subject to questioning by Conservative members, who will decide their next leader.

On Monday, Owen Polley wrote in his weekly column on these pages wrote that Mr Sunak, the former chancellor, and Ms Truss, the foreign secretary would need to have the answers prepared on the NI Protocol for the local audience. (See link below)

Owen recapped on the position of the two candidates towards the Irish Sea border, pointing out for example that Ms Truss had said that the EU only understands strength, while Mr Sunak had been reluctant to engage in confrontation with the EU, despite its intransigence over the protocol.

“These are issues that we must hope are explored in detail during the contenders’ Northern Ireland debate,” wrote Owen. He added that Mr Sunak and Ms Truss “will face Conservatives and Unionists who have been let down by the government and isolated from the rest of the UK. They’d better have convincing answers at the ready”.

This newspaper wrote an editorial ahead of the hustings saying: “With the Union under multiple assault, local Tories should not waste the chance to sound out what this pair plan do about crises that threaten to pull apart a UK they hope to lead.” (See link below)

On Twitter I urged NI Conservatives not to ask questions of concern only to their membership.

I expressed the same hope on BBC Radio Ulster Talkback.

When Wednesday came round, almost 200 local party members gathered at the Culloden, and were allowed to ask anything of Mr Sunak and Ms Truss (the members were not required to submit their questions to Tory bosses for pre-approval, and so they were handed a real chance to subject the would-be leaders to searching probes).

So what actually happened?

In the course of more than an hour, many questions were put to Mr Sunak and Ms Truss. But only two questions raised the Northern Ireland Protocol. Just two.

Not one such question was put to Mr Sunak, despite his oft reported opposition to the NI Protocol Bill, which seeks to overhaul the Irish Sea border.

This was partly due to a stupid aspect of the hustings format. Andrew Stephenson, the Tory Party chairman, sought questions from members by scanning round to see who was putting their hand up, seemingly unaware of who the members were. This was an admirably open approach to the questioning — it showed that the party leadership was not trying to control the event, by only authorising questions in advance. But the two candidates had addressed the crowd separately, which meant that if a good or tricky or notable question was posed by a local member, then only the candidate who was on stage at that time had to answer it.

And so, the way the questions panned out, no-one thought to ask Mr Sunak about perhaps the biggest threat to the Union since the creation of Northern Ireland in 1921. Nor did any Tory member ask Ms Truss about our front page that morning (see picture and see link below), which was visible in any convenience store in Northern Ireland, reported at the top of our website, and mentioned on BBC Radio Ulster — her refusal to clarify whether or not she would pledge to get the NI Protocol Bill on to the statute books in undiluted form.

Ms Truss had submitted an opinion piece for us which mentioned the fact that she had initiated the legislation to overhaul the internal barrier to UK but then she went on vaguely to talk about the need for “solutions”.

So we asked if she would commit to passing the bill in full. She declined. We understand that she feels that full delivery is outside of her control due to the Lords etc. But that is a cop out. Barely any MPs rebelled against her bill so as PM she could easily vow to overturn the Lords and see off the sort of amendments that dilute the bill (to the satisfaction of Dublin and Brussels).

Yet not a Tory in NI thought this worth investigation. And this, remember, is the candidate that Brexiteers and some unionists tell us is obviously the more strongly pro Union of the two contenders.

Nor did NI Tories ask about some of the other, more low-level threats to the Union that are often examined in this newspaper.

Mr Sunak and Ms Truss must have internally felt they were skipping off the stage in delight on Wednesday. If they had feared encountering angry NI Tories, betrayed at the detachment of NI from Great Britain, or the sort of blunt anger shown to Mr Johnson in May, they were pleasantly surprised.

As it happens I admire the way NI Tories try to take a global view, not a parochial one. They in fact asked some good questions about a range of issues. But I do wish a few of them had said: ‘I would prefer to ask you about Ukraine (or cost of living, or whatever) but I must instead ask you about this disastrous internal border...’

In the event, I fear that they have made influential people in London think this: That NI Conservatives and Unionists are not much bothered by the end to unfettered internal UK trade (GB to NI), in the same way that NI business representative groups, NI academics, and much of the NI media/commentary world seemed un-bothered.

• Ben Lowry (@BenLowry2) is News Letter editor. Scroll down for other stories by him

• News Letter front page story Aug 17: Truss delcines to commit to passing NI Protocol Bill in full

• Editorial Aug 17: Rishi Sunak gives stronger answers on Northern Ireland Protocol than Liz Truss does

• Owen Polley Aug 15: Tory hopefuls should be ready to explain their stance on the Union to NI hustings

• Other stories by Ben Lowry below:

• Ben Lowry August 13: Salman Rushdie has been a hero of free speech against extremism

• Ben Lowry August 6: The high powered gathering at Trimble’s funeral in holiday time was a tribute to him

• Ben Lowry July 30: I never hesitated in my support for David Trimble’s 1998 agreement

• Ben Lowry July 23: Imagine a Bloody Sunday memorial that didn’t mention the Paras

• Ben Lowry July 23: What a character was Paddy Hopkirk, and what memories he had

• Ben Lowry July 16: There is no sign of a Tory who sees the problems facing unionists in Northern Ireland

• Ben Lowry July 9: For some reason unionists would not turn against Boris Johnson