The mere fact that a Tory leadership hustings is taking place in Northern Ireland at all is enough to raise eyebrows among Conservative party members elsewhere, looking across the Irish Sea at a local party believed to number just a few hundred.
But few are likely to begrudge a moment in the sun for the Northern Irish Conservatives, who have long faced an uphill struggle. A Stormont candidate in 2017 got just 27 first preference votes, languishing last behind a Christian activist who wanted to criminalise adultery.
For Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, however, their appearance in Belfast is fraught with risk, party observers and insiders agree, with the potential for any number of banana skins to slip on – from being quizzed on the Northern Ireland protocol and the government’s Troubles “legacy” plans to being asked about basic historical detail.
“Northern Ireland conservatives are a well-intentioned bunch of people including people who have wanted to chart a political course beyond orange and green but they have also been really divided and factional. There’s always been a People’s Front for the Liberation of Judea aspect,” a former Conservative adviser who worked in Northern Ireland said.
“So for the candidates it’ll be high risk, as well as annoying in terms of having [to] devote resources, but it’ll be like Christmas for the local party, many of whom feel neglected and forgotten about.”
After years of often not even being able to vote for a Tory candidate – the party stood in only four Northern Ireland constituencies in the last general election – each member now has an actual vote for the next prime minister in what is an electorate that represents a tiny fraction of the UK’s population.
Before Wednesday’s hustings and Tuesday’s in Perth – both opportunities for the candidates to portray themselves as defenders of an imperilled union – Truss described herself as a “child of the union”, though she attracted ridicule for her Sherlock Holmes-like conclusion that Sinn Féin was attempting to “drive a wedge” between Northern Ireland and Britain.
Sunak has meanwhile pledged that Northern Ireland would be central to his plan to “restore trust, rebuild our economy and unite our great nation” and promised that he would fix the protocol, emphasising what he described as his record as “an experienced international negotiator”.
For Henry Hill, deputy editor of Conservative Home, Sunak is the candidate who has the most to fear from Belfast, given reports that, as chancellor, he had opposed the protocol bill, which would give ministers the power to scrap parts of the post-Brexit deal between the UK and EU.
“I think there’s a danger for Sunak, depending on who ends up questioning him, that he gets asked a question he’s managed to avoid answering so far, which is: ‘OK, so the protocol bill comes into law. What do you do with it? What’s your plan for fixing the border?’ He doesn’t have one.”
Others are less convinced, with the former Tory adviser suggesting that Northern Ireland Tories won’t necessarily be won over by Truss’s red, white and blue bluster.
“The protocol is also something that affects business and we’re talking about people who live in Northern Ireland and are in business. They’re also – in comparison to other unionists in Northern Ireland – people who tend to be more liberal, which might make some lean away from the rightwing positions taken by Truss.”
Aside from battling for a few hundred votes from Tory members in Northern Ireland, there’s the added fact that Truss and Sunak will still be playing to the wider audience of the 160,000 membership.
Hill adds: “Members won’t necessarily be tuning in but they will pick up on what is covered. There’s also Conservative MPs, including a lot who have become latter day unionists after originally supporting the protocol. They’re going to be looking for ways to underline their own pro-union credentials and will want to hear what is said.”
