Liz Truss’s blustery style triggers EU eye rolls, but a trade misjudgement could prove serious

“She [Ms Truss] treats the EU as a Tory Party conference, playing to the gallery,” says Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform. “If she sticks to the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill, that guarantees bad relations and possibly a trade war.”

Mr Grant says that Ms Truss and the key foreign policy figures advising her have little or no experience with the EU, and consistently misjudge the situation. “They keep misreading the EU,” he says. “The Tory ideology is ‘We are strong, and they are weak’. However, the UK has no leverage with the EU. In a trade war, it would suffer worse. And they keep thinking they can play a game of divide and rule – it just doesn’t work.”