Liz Truss' negotiating experience makes her job easier

The candidate for prime minister in Britain faces the dilemma of the Northern Ireland protocol

• Liz Terrace participated in negotiations with the European Union.

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• Implementation of the protocol threatens the Good Friday Agreement.

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As the campaign progresses to win the leadership of Britain's Conservative Party, momentum is building around Liz Terrace.

The Trust consistently leads in Conservative Party membership polls, and regularly gets support from big names.

And the Secretary of State may, indeed, think beyond the leadership campaign and the challenges of the premiership.

However, one challenge precedes all others in importance: finding a solution to the problems that have plagued Northern Ireland in recent years.

The power-sharing agreements between unionists and nationalists in the Northern Ireland Assembly - an outgrowth of the Belfast Agreement - are in jeopardy.

Normal trade between Northern Ireland and Britain was seriously disrupted, as part of the Northern Ireland Protocol, a deal between Britain and the European Union to divide the United Kingdom into different customs areas to avoid tight border controls between the Republic of Ireland and the North.

As a fallout from the European Union, tight tariffs were imposed between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom.

This has put certain industries and their supply chains at risk and are constantly on the verge of collapse.

At the same time, and most urgently for Truss, it eroded Northern Ireland's association with Great Britain, by placing Northern Ireland's affairs under the jurisdiction of European courts and subject to a de facto European veto.

This situation is not favored by London and denounced by the unionists in Northern Ireland, who view this authority as essentially illegitimate and based on a willingness to break up the United Kingdom.

Liz Truss has been Britain's foreign secretary and negotiator with the European Union since 2019. She knows that a resolution to the protocol is vital.

Without it, there can be no orderly solution to the constitutional hurdles to Brexit, and the union between the constituent parts of the United Kingdom will remain in jeopardy.

The next prime minister must be ready to come up with a new and more permanent solution to this impasse.

The UK has been engaged with the EU on this very point for a long time.

Article 16 of the Protocol allows for its termination if one of the parties declares that it has failed completely.

For Britain, the protocol has long been considered a failure.

And if, in early September, Terrass is installed in power, it will need political victories and show it.

It will need to show that it has brought the issue of Brexit under control.

This is a challenge, but like many challenges, it is also an opportunity.

In this context, Truss has told her supporters, and appears to indicate through her actions and her promises, that she is ready to overcome this last hurdle on the issue of Britain's exit from the European Union.

Terrace is lucky in some ways;

Her party has shown a willingness to work with all parties in Northern Ireland, and in the UK, to find compromises that have moved the process forward before.

She has in her ranks enough ministerial talent to find new solutions that will preserve the peace and prosperity that all parties wish to see in Northern Ireland.

The debate over the future of Northern Ireland has received widespread attention.

The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Conor Burns, impressed and impressed others with the continued goodwill of the UK government.

If the Terrace wishes to ensure rapid and positive action on the protocol, it is fortunate to have such ministers ready to serve in its cabinet.

Currently, the protocol stifles trade and the Northern Ireland parties appear unwilling to compromise.

The inter-communal power-sharing clause, a core principle of the Good Friday Agreement, is under pressure.

These problems cannot be avoided, and they will face the next government as soon as it begins its work.

But all this is solvable.

It is a problem to which hard work, the ability to compromise, and the ability to develop new lines of negotiation can be applied effectively.

TRACE has negotiated with the EU before and knows how to do it.

And if she is soon elected prime minister, she must approach Northern Ireland with confident determination, knowing that finding solutions, where her predecessors did not, would be a profound statement of her premiership potential.

• Terrace is lucky in some ways;

Her party has shown a willingness to work with all sides in Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom.

border dispute

During Brexit, Britain negotiated a protocol to avoid the creation of a physical border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, by effectively keeping the latter part of the European single market.

The agreement provided that the entire island of Ireland would remain in the single market with a customs border in the Irish Sea, with Northern Ireland in practice keeping a foothold in both the British and European systems.

Goods entering Northern Ireland from Great Britain are subject to EU port procedures.

To implement these measures, an Irish sea barrier is being established.

The implementation of these measures caused delays in getting the goods to the stores.

Not all protocol measures were implemented, as the EU gave a grace period extended by the UK, which sparked a dispute and London accused the Europeans of violating international law.

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