Liz Truss is to pull back from an early confrontation with the EU over post-Brexit trading rules with Northern Ireland, with Brussels and Dublin hoping for a narrow “opportunity” to reset relations with the new prime minister.
Truss’s allies say the new premier will not activate the emergency Article 16 override provisions in the Northern Ireland protocol in the coming weeks, a move EU diplomats say would have been seen as “a provocative act”.
The new prime minister’s team had considered using Article 16 because the so-called ‘grace periods’ which the EU and UK agreed in 2020 to allow lighter touch controls on trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland are due to expire on September 15.