One of the big priorities for the new Prime Minister is dealing with the situation in Northern Ireland. There’s no time for procrastination as the existing arrangements which suspend checks on goods travelling between Northern Ireland and Great Britain expire on 15 September. Liz Truss has made very clear that she is serious about getting the problems with the Protocol fixed and that while her favoured outcome is a negotiated settlement, she is also prepared to be tough. One of her newest supporters is Conor Burns, Minister of State for Northern Ireland, who only declared for the Foreign Secretary at the weekend but who is in Dublin at the moment trying to see if there is greater appetite for a settlement.

Burns has met former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern. He is also having talks with Maroš Šefčovič, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator. This is a mission that has the backing of both Truss and her rival Rishi Sunak, both of whom have talked tough in the contest on the Protocol and want to fix the problems before the cost of living crisis becomes even more acute. He also – when I speak to him in between meetings in Dublin – suggests he’s getting help and advice in his mission from other big names. ‘We are in touch with lots of people who are willing to help,’ he says. Ahern, I point out, was a big partner of Tony Blair’s in the peace process. Has he been in touch with Blair? ‘I’ve met with many people who are very keen to help,’ he replies, coyly.

Burns explains what he sees as being the Truss approach to the problem of the protocol. ‘What I’ve said to people is the legislation [allowing the UK government to unilaterally override parts of the Protocol] is not a bluff. It is not a negotiating tactic. The legislation is borne out of the reality that the talks we were having with the Commission were not flexible enough or wide enough in their scope to deliver us the landing zone point. So we really do want to negotiate a solution to this. But in the absence of those negotiations, we cannot just let it drift: we are cruising towards the 28 October deadline, where the government will have to decide whether to call fresh elections in Northern Ireland, move to direct rule or legislatively intervene to extend the period. We are not operating here in an open-ended space where there are no decisions that have to be made within a finite deadline.

‘The legislation is described as an insurance policy, and it is in the sense that most insurance policies are better if they don’t pay out: if they do, something’s gone wrong. So this policy, this instance, this legislation will pay out if we have failed to get a negotiation and that will be a failure of British and European statecraft.’

That last shows how high the stakes are for the Protocol negotiations, which underlines why it makes sense for Burns and others to be getting on with things rather than waiting – as much of government has – for this long leadership contest to conclude.