Senior government leaders hope that Boris Johnson’s departure as British Prime Minister will bring stability, restore confidence and reinvigorate efforts to solve the problems of Brexit.
NGO-Irish relations are at a serious low, while Mr Johnson, who announced his resignation at No. 10 yesterday, has been embroiled in a string of political scandals.
Johnson will remain as interim prime minister, but a replacement is expected in early September, with several Tory names already in the mix.
The Taoiseach has suggested that early UK elections may not be in Ireland’s best interest, while they hope Mr Johnson’s political downfall will end the UK’s unilateralism over the Northern Ireland Protocol.
Government sources said Penny Mordaunt, MP for Portsmouth, was seen as a friendlier face to Ireland. She is a Royal Naval reservist and former Armed Forces Secretary, but has family ties to Wexford.
They are less enamored with early favorite Ben Wallace, but they also don’t expect him to eventually rise to power.
Mr Wallace is a former British Army unit who served in the North. Earlier he told how as a young soldier he foiled an IRA bomb plot. He began his political career in the Scottish Parliament before choosing a career south of the border.
But there was unease over the suggestion that Secretary of State Liz Truss could prevail. Ms Truss has introduced the bill to lift the protocol provisions and is seen in Dublin as an attempt to outflank Boris Johnson on the far-right side of the Conservative party.
“We want someone who is middle ground…constructive, pragmatic and reliable,” said a source close to the Taoiseach.
Another well-placed source in Fianna Fáil said: “We want anyone willing to negotiate and get serious with the EU on the protocol – and get the Northern Ireland meeting going.”
The Taoiseach previously said “stability is important” as he suggested a general election in Britain would not help.
When asked if he had anything good to say about Boris Johnson, Martin said the couple were friendly on a personal level. “We got along well,” he said. Mr Johnson was “good company”.
“We disagreed on fundamental issues, such as Brexit,” he said.
“I met Boris Johnson when he was Foreign Secretary; I have always felt that Brexit was the wrong choice. But I respect the decision of the British people to vote for it.
“From the policy perspective, I would have always thought it was a fundamentally wrong decision – and I think some of that has already manifested itself. There was very little advance planning and the outcome of Brexit is not good everywhere.”
Earlier, Mr Johnson bowed to cabinet pressure and promised no major policy changes in his last days in office, amid Tory alarms during his two-month janitorial term.
He promised that “major changes of course”, including tax cuts, would be left to his successor, even if he rejected demands to leave No 10 immediately.
During his resignation speech, Mr Johnson fueled fears of what he will do in his remaining months in power when he protested that the party’s decision to remove him was “eccentric”.
“The herd is powerful and when the herd moves, she moves,” he said of Tory MPs – adding that he would give his successor “as much support as I can”.
Sir John Major is demanding that he be forced out of the country to avoid further damage to the country after what some Tory MPs called a Trump-esque attempt to cling to power.
British Labor leader Keir Starmer vowed to hold a vote in the House of Commons to try to force the Prime Minister immediately if Conservative MPs failed to “get rid of him”, saying: “He can turn this way don’t cling.”
But it would take several dozen rebel Tories for the vote to pass – and the 1922 party committee is not expected to act against him.
It will set the leadership election timeline to reduce about a dozen expected candidates to just two.
The party members then choose the next prime minister from that shortlist, after a looting in August.