Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss: The Border is the one thing no prime minister has made sense of since the referendum. Photograph: Jacob KingIt is hardly a surprise that China has emerged as an ideological fault line in the ongoing Conservative leadership contest. Tensions over Taiwan are mounting. Only last week, the head of the British navy warned that the West may be underestimating the military capabilities of Beijing.
China has become a hobby horse in this debate precisely because it is a cultural signifier, a proxy for the contenders’ freedom-loving and patriotic impulses. Cynically or not, it is a perfect calling card for Sunak and Truss as they try to appeal to the 200,000 or so Conservative Party members – it is their votes and their votes only that matter in the end.
We know that the question of the Border, the functioning of the executive and the general economic wellbeing of the region has never been a serious issue for the English electorate. During the referendum campaigns in 2015, aside from one or two high-level but ultimately ineffective interventions, Northern Ireland was relegated to a secondary or tertiary issue struggling for a slot in the newspapers.
And most important of all – and the very thing that should be plaguing the minds of Sunak and Truss as they aim for Downing Street – is the simple fact that the question of the Northern Irish Border will land squarely on their lap on the first day of the job. And though talking about that won’t help them win a debate or gain electoral momentum, they must know that simply pretending a problem is not there will not make it vanish.
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