Energy crisis drives Liz Truss’s stance on EU relations

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Good morning. One way that Liz Truss is not like her predecessor is that she is minded to seek less confrontational options in her relations with the rest of Europe. But another way Liz Truss is not like her predecessor is that she is minded to seek more ideological solutions almost everywhere else. Today’s note is on how those dynamics are at work in her response to the energy crisis.

Inside Politics is edited by Oliver Ralph today. Follow Stephen on Twitter @stephenkb and please send gossip, thoughts and feedback to [email protected].

Truss can’t live (if living is without EU’s energy co-operation)

One misreading of Liz Truss is to think that, because she campaigned to stay in the EU in 2016, she is a pragmatist or someone whose more radical positioning can be explained or understood as simple expediency.

The reality is that Truss was a Remainer in 2016 because she doesn’t care about the EU all that much. She saw the work of unpicking the UK’s EU membership as a distraction from the “real” work of supply-side reform and shrinking the state, which has been her policy preoccupation, sometimes to the frustration of her fellow ministers or in some cases her civil servants.

But that lack of passion about either remaining or leaving is one reason why her government has, thus far, struck a different note on EU matters than that of Boris Johnson. She has attended the inaugural meeting of the European Political Community and the UK will sign up to the North Seas Energy Cooperation (NSEC), while her government has also struck a more consensual tone on the Northern Ireland protocol than her predecessor.

Another reason, of course, is that the UK, like the rest of Europe, is facing an energy crisis this winter. (Almost like the nations of Europe have a large number of shared interests and these interests are well-served by co-operation through supranational organisations. Funny that.) As Nathalie Thomas and Jim Pickard report, National Grid will ask millions of households to cut their energy consumption this winter to avoid blackouts.

But Truss’s flexibility (relatively speaking: she’s still the leader of a party largely committed to a very loose relationship with the EU) on European co-operation may well be undermined by a lack of flexibility elsewhere.

The other part of Truss’s back-story that people misread is her historic membership of the Liberal Democrats. Ultimately the biggest change since Truss was a member of that party isn’t in Truss: it is in a Conservative party which has moved closer to her on social issues. But she is, and was, a libertarian ideologue. Hence this story by the Times’ political editor Steven Swinford:

No. 10 has rejected plans signed off by Jacob Rees-Mogg, the business secretary, for a £15mn public information campaign to encourage people to save energy.

Now, Truss’s energy plan leaves an awful lot of the energy price rise in place, so it may well turn out that UK households end up being forced into energy-saving measures in sufficient numbers that the country avoids blackouts. But neither widespread energy poverty nor blackouts are a good backdrop for a prime minister desperately in need of a change of fortunes — and if we, and Truss, are unlucky, we might well end up with both.

Blinded by the (lack of) light

Given that, just how long does Liz Truss have — and what do Conservative MPs think their options for getting rid of her are? Katy Balls has an essential guide to their mood in this week’s Spectator. MPs believe there are four possible scenarios: Liz Truss survives; Liz Truss is replaced by a unifying caretaker figure such as Sajid Javid, Grant Shapps or David Davis; Liz Truss is replaced by Rishi Sunak; or Liz Truss is replaced by Boris Johnson.

Now, there are problems with all these approaches, and the difficulty of pulling any of them off is one reason why a lot of MPs think they are stuck with Truss. As Seb Payne reports in his column, the party’s various factions are all sizing up their chances and think they have a decent shot, which also limits the chances that they will be able to cohere around an alternative.

I still think that if the polls continue to be apocalyptically awful for the Conservatives, Tory MPs will find a way to change their leader. But a good reason to bet against me is that it is all hellishly complicated and that MPs may end up deciding that it is simply too difficult and too risky.

Now try this

I saw Ticket to Paradise at the cinema last night. It’s a romantic comedy starring Julia Roberts and George Clooney as a divorced couple who team up to prevent their daughter marrying young as they did. If you’ve seen a romcom before, absolutely nothing about this film will surprise you, but it’s a nice, life-affirming way to spend an evening at the pictures. Danny Leigh’s review is perfectly judged and exactly right.

On a more highbrow note: Annie Ernaux has won the Nobel Prize for Literature. My direct knowledge of Ernaux’s work is confined solely to the brilliant and harrowing film Happening, the 2022 adaptation of Ernaux’s book of the same name, but my partner, who has read Ernaux, assures me that it is a very good adaptation. Our primer to all things Ernaux can be read here.

However you spend it, have a wonderful weekend.

Top stories today

• North Sea oil spree | UK regulators have launched a new round of licences for oil exploration in the North Sea, with more than 100 expected to be awarded by June. Climate campaigners plan to mount a legal challenge to the move.

• Civil service jobs | Liz Truss is watering down Boris Johnson’s plan to cut 91,000 civil service jobs, with the target unlikely to be hit by the end of the current parliament. Jacob Rees-Mogg announced the plan earlier this year but Nadhim Zahawi, the cabinet office secretary, has decided that the target needs to be reviewed.

• Rail relief for Avanti | Ministers have given troubled train operator Avanti a short-term renewal of its contract to run trains on the west coast mainline after two months of timetable chaos.

• Evergrande head’s £210mn London pad | London’s most expensive house, a 45-room mansion overlooking Hyde Park, is owned by the head of embattled Chinese property group Evergrande, according to people familiar with the secretive £210mn sale that was struck just before Covid-19 hit the UK.