Irish Examiner view: Truss needs to hit the ground sprinting to have fighting chance

New premier faces one of the most of challenging inboxes in more than 80 years

Liz Truss during a hustings event in Cheltenham, as part of the campaign to be leader of the Conservative Party and the next prime minister. Picture: Ben Birchall/PA Wire

Barring a collapse of massive proportions — something which would make Devon Loch look like a slight stumble — Mary Elizabeth Truss, “call me Liz”, will be announced as the new prime minister of Britain sometime just after noon today.

Truss, 47, becomes the fourth leader in succession to be a graduate of the “city of dreaming spires” so it was apposite that the Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney chose Oxford as their location this weekend — they were attending the British-Irish Association conference — to send guarded messages to the leader with whom they will have to transact over future developments in the North and in particular the re-establishment of devolved government in Stormont.

The new premier faces one of the most challenging inboxes in more than 80 years. A ferocious energy crisis, rampant inflation, a collapsing currency, a hugely dangerous war, galloping militancy from unions, a crisis of illegal immigration, failing public services, and escalating public disquiet.

Small wonder that The Daily Telegraph said that it would not be good enough for Ms Truss to “hit the ground running”. She needs to be “sprinting from the very start”.

At most, it is two years to the next British election. As matters currently stand, the Conservatives will lose and could be out of power for two or three terms. For them the stakes are high.

With the British government appearing to be absent on manoeuvres for eight weeks and Boris Johnson on a farewell tour, for now, the timetable for action is tight. This afternoon and evening she will need to finalise her cabinet and senior appointments and polish up her first prime ministerial speech.

Johnson will make his valedictory comments from the steps of Number 10 tomorrow before flying to Scotland and his Balmoral appointment with his monarch. He will be followed north, later, by Britain’s next prime minister, who will return immediately after meeting the queen, receiving security briefings en route. The first public speech is scheduled for 4pm from Downing Street.

Calls will be received from other world leaders. Liz Truss has already said that the first call she will make will be to Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The first meeting of the new cabinet will be on Wednesday morning and the first PM’s questions, where the new incumbent will face Keir Starmer, is at 12pm.

Choice of cabinet

We will learn much about the future direction of Britain from the choice of colleagues sitting around the cabinet table, a number of whom are not particularly well-known in Ireland, while others are actively disliked. While we have become indelibly associated with the European Union, our neighbours do not share its passion for regulatory conformity.

Mr Martin expresses the hope that now there is an opportunity to “reset” the British-Irish relationship in a constructive way, and the fact is that it is essential to both countries, which are going to need to help each other in a time of extremis, that matters improve.

While Simon Coveney says there is a “pathway to make progress” and that there is “no justifiable reason to leave Northern Ireland’s democratic institutions in limbo” the previous relationship between him and Ms Truss in her role as foreign secretary is thought to have possessed a certain froideur.

Some senior officials and politicians in the Republic are already briefing against her.

The Northern Ireland protocol is but one of the challenges awaiting Britain’s 56th prime minister, and if progress could not be made when the likely successor to that title was in charge of the foreign office then sceptics might wonder what the magic word will be this time around.

It may require a remarkable appointment to the position of Northern Ireland secretary to grease the wheels, particularly if there is a triggering of Article 16 as a means of restoring a level of government at Stormont.

The war in Europe over Russian expansionism is not going to go away any time soon. Next Monday will be Day 200 of the illegal Russian invasion of Ukraine. Already it is nearly three times as long as the Falklands War, the international conflict which saved Margaret Thatcher from electoral defeat and set her on course for a hat-trick of general election victories.

Mrs Thatcher is the role model of the likely new resident of 10 Downing Street. It is going to be a very interesting few weeks in politics. For Britain, for Ireland, for Europe, and the world.