Irish Examiner view: Coveney offers Truss a chance

New Prime Minister Liz Truss and her husband Hugh O'Leary outside 10 Downing Street.

The departure of Boris Johnson as British prime minister was certainly in keeping with his tenure.

Whether he was advocating that Britons should buy new kettles to stave off the high costs of energy this winter or describing himself as a ‘booster rocket’, Johnson’s performance as prime minister was often difficult to see in traditional terms, to put it politely, but his three years as leader are now material for historians.

Liz Truss takes up residence in Downing Street with serious challenges waiting in the in-tray, from the energy crisis mentioned above, to the ongoing war in Ukraine, not to mention the traditional challenges thrown up in the daily grind of national politics. In that regard, the enmity of Priti Patel, the recently departed home secretary now lurking on the back benches, will also occupy Truss’s thoughts.

Observers on this side of the Irish Sea can be forgiven for hoping the arrival of a new prime minister will herald a thaw in Anglo-Irish relations. The British government’s cavalier attitude towards the Northern Ireland Protocol in recent years, epitomised by the likes of David Davis and David Frost, has left a legacy of distrust that needs to be dismantled quickly. Truss carries her own baggage in that regard: As foreign secretary she proposed domestic legislation scrapping customs checks on goods moving between Northern Ireland and Britain, legislation the European Commission viewed as breaching international law.

However, it was encouraging earlier this week to read Foreign Minister Simon Coveney’s hopeful suggestion that Truss might reach a sensible compromise on the protocol.

In diplomatic terms Coveney has offered the new British regime an opportunity to play the statesman, and perhaps to repair some of the damage done to its reputation by Johnson’s shenanigans.

It’s in the interest of everyone on both sides of the Irish Sea that they take that opportunity.