Whether it is Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak who is handed the keys to Downing Street on September 5, officials in Brussels have little hope of a rapprochement with the new government. More than six years after Britain voted to leave the European Union, relations have reached a post-Brexit low as the UK government pushes ahead with plans to unilaterally overhaul the Northern Ireland Protocol, a key element of the post-Brexit deal. Brexit. The EU has said the plans – led by Truss, the foreign secretary – would breach international law and threatened to tear up the trade deal after Brexit. An EU diplomat said there was nothing to suggest that Truss, the trailblazer, would abandon the approach she took as foreign secretary. “If the UK government goes ahead with the plan that has already been drawn up, I think it’s fair to say that relations will get worse,” they said. British and European officials close to the protracted talks on the protocol, however, believe there is a window of opportunity for a new prime minister when the contentious bill goes to the Lords, where it could be debated for months. An EU official said there was “a glimmer of hope” of resuming talks while the bill was out of government, but said no one could say whether a possible Prime Minister Truss would curb the confrontation she had intensified as foreign secretary. Expectations are not high. “Campaigns generally just further entrench difficult positions and radicalize candidates. It’s rare to end up in a more moderate place after a bitter leadership campaign,” the official said, citing experience dealing with Boris Johnson, who has fallen short of the EU’s initial hopes that he would be an ideologically flexible pragmatist. The Center for European Policy, a Brussels think tank with close ties to EU institutions, concluded that the Brexit process is “permanently damaging” the EU-UK relationship. “In the short term, any reset of the EU-UK relationship is unlikely, particularly as the seemingly intractable issue of [protocol] remains open,” EPC analysts Emily Fitzpatrick and Fabian Zuleeg wrote in a recent paper. Mujtaba Rahman, managing director for Europe at the Eurasia Group, said Truss had started her tenure as foreign secretary as a “geopolitical pragmatist” but was seen to have “rapidly turned” to a harder line. In the view of the Europeans “she has made a domestic calculation around her trajectory which subordinates the interest of Northern Ireland and indeed the relationship with the EU, to her ambition to move to Downing Street”, he said. “It will bring a very big trust deficit to the relationship on its first day. I think people are really, really burned by what he did.” EU officials know Sunak less well but have noted reports that he warned Boris Johnson not to risk a trade war with the EU when the government was debating triggering the suspension clause of Article 16 of the Northern Ireland protocol. The former chancellor, however, raised eyebrows in Brussels when he claimed in a recent televised debate that the Northern Ireland bill would lead to free trade between Great Britain, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland – a statement dramatically at odds with Brexit. agreement that voted. Subscribe to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every morning at 7am. BST Another key factor the EU sees as shaping its relationship with the UK is the extent to which the prime minister controls their party. While Johnson won a majority of 80 MPs, his successor may not be in such a commanding position. “It depends on how strong their support is, how strong their grip on the party is and how much the party can withstand another crisis,” EU officials said. “All eyes will be on the next election and then try not to accumulate problems? Or do they think the best way to do it is to inflame anti-European sentiments?’ EU officials will keep a close eye on the next prime minister’s top team. Truss was reported by the Sunday Times as considering David Frost, the former Brexit negotiator who has totemic status on the Eurosceptic right, as her chief of staff. Rahman said he had heard hints that Frost was being considered to reprise his role as Brexit secretary or even become foreign secretary in a future Truss government. “If he has any role and any meaningful service in this question, I think that sends a very negative message about what he intends to initiate.”
