Even with a will to be pragmatic, the foreign secretary will encounter high obstacles to a better relationship with Europe
Since her appointment as foreign secretary in September, Liz Truss has said little about the European Union. Her speeches exalt the UK as the broker of a global “network of liberty”, listing alliances with scarcely any reference to the club of democracies on Britain’s continental doorstep. That omission partly reflects the ideological temper of the Conservative party, to which Ms Truss is highly sensitised. It also expressed divisions of labour in the cabinet when David Frost was in charge of post-Brexit negotiations with Brussels. But since Lord Frost’s resignation, the European portfolio has returned to the Foreign Office. Silence on the subject is no longer an option for the secretary of state.
Her first intervention has been to restate Britain’s readiness to trigger article 16 of the withdrawal agreement, suspending its operation, if grievances regarding the Northern Ireland protocol are not satisfied. The terms demanded by Lord Frost for a renegotiation still stand.
