UK Prime Minister Liz Truss’ choice of new Northern Ireland minister does not augur well for any change of direction on Brexit and the North’s special trade status.
The new London minister for the North is Chris Heaton-Harris, the outgoing chief whip, who has long been a leading light in the anti-EU grouping, the European Research Group (ERG), which included people like Jacob Rees Mogg.
Mr Heaton-Harris is also a former Euro MEP, and served for a time as junior minister in the Brexit job, when Ms Truss, as foreign minister, was given charge of the EU-UK divorce aftermath talks in 2021.
Some Brussels officials saw him at that stage as the “ERG’s supervisor” in that post ensuring there would be no concession to Brussels.
Mr Heaton-Harris, a self-described “fierce Eurosceptic”, had been tipped to take the role earlier yesterday morning, after Ms Truss reportedly offered the role to a number of other leading candidates.
Several reports from the London parliament over the past two days strongly indicated that the Northern Ireland minister’s job posed difficulties for the new prime minister trying to find a willing candidate.
Early reports were that former finance minister and health minister, Sajid Javid, had turned it down.
Mr Heaton-Harris becomes the 18th person to hold the job since it was first created in 1972 after the Belfast parliament was abolished
Apparently, so too did Penny Mordaunt, a former minister in Theresa May’s government, and placed third in the earlier stages of the prime ministerial election.
In London political circles the Belfast job is seen as bringing many disadvantages, few benefits, and also carrying very little political influence in the government more generally as it carries a low cabinet ranking.
Up to the appointment it seemed that Belfast man, Conor Burns, who is from a nationalist background and Tory MP for Bournemouth, and who was up to yesterday junior minister in that department, was interested in the job. But by last night he was without a key appointment and did notom Boris Johnson’s government to get the sack yesterday was the outgoing Northern Ireland minister, Shailesh Vara, who is of Ugandan extraction.
He had served as an interim minister for just two months from July 7 and, as a backer of her defeated rival Rishi Sunak, was not included in Ms Truss’ team.
The longer-term occupant of the senior Belfast job, Brandon Lewis, has got the job of justice minister.
He distinguished himself in 2020 by publicly acknowledging in the London parliament that planned legislation to dismantle Northern Ireland’s special post-Brexit trade status actually broke international law.
Mr Heaton-Harris originally comes from Epsom, Surrey, in the affluent south-east of England. Before entering politics, the new Northern Ireland minister worked for and eventually ran his family’s wholesale fruit and vegetable company in New Convent Market before going into politics.
He was first elected as a Tory MP in the 2010 general election for Daventry, and wa re-elected to the seat in every general election since.
Mr Heaton-Harris, according to his website, has been an active and qualified football referee for 32 years, officiating the game at various different levels.
He is a current referee for Northampshire Combination League and serves as president of Earls Barton Football Club.
Throughout his political career, the new man reporting to Liz Truss on behalf of Northern Ireland has held numerous titles, including Conservative Member of the European Parliament for the East Midlands Region, co-chairman of the Fresh Start Project, chairman of the European Research Group of Conservative MPs, Assistant Government Whip, Controller of Her Majesty’s Household and Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Exiting the EU.
He is known for his advocacy of “smaller government and responsible spending” and describes himself as a “passionate localist”.
Mr Heaton-Harris previously visited Northern Ireland earlier this year alongside future PM and then Foreign Secretary Liz Truss to look at the “impact of the Northern Ireland Protocol”.
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