Since its establishment in 1972, the British-Irish Association has played a major role in "promoting good relations between the governments and peoples of the UK and Ireland by identifying emerging issues, supporting positive change, forging strong connections and helping to build peace in Northern Ireland".

Last weekend, it met in Oxford, bringing together politicians, diplomats, civil servants, journalists, academics and activists. A broad range of perspectives and experiences for sure, but all with an interest in the future relations between our respective parliaments, governments, jurisdictions and peoples.

Inevitably, much of the bandwidth for discussion was taken up with the impasse over the Northern Ireland Protocol. Yet the fact remains - for all its sabre-rattling and claims of wanting to see a negotiated solution to its self-inflicted problems on this issue, the UK Government has failed to conduct any meaningful discussions with the EU over the Protocol since mid-February.

READ MORE: Supreme Court says SNP can intervene in Scottish indyref2 case

Might the change in Prime Minister help to move things on? It’s certainly to be hoped for, since any unilateral attempt to walk away from the Protocol will almost certainly lead to a tightening of trade terms with the EU – which is the last thing anyone in Scotland needs right now.

The First Minister hit the nail on the head on Monday when she said that Liz Truss would be a "disaster" as Prime Minister if she governs as she has campaigned. Hopefully, the desire from the conference for improved future UK-everyone else relations rubs off on the new UK Government. Because those relations need improving in everyone’s interest.

Most obviously, the UK’s relationship with Brussels is in the depths of a deep-freeze at the moment. Relationships with the Scottish and Welsh Governments are little better, given the post-Brexit power grab of the Internal Market Bill and the anti-democratic obstruction from London to Indyref 2. If there was an Executive in place in Belfast then no doubt the same would be true there also.

The obvious common denominator here is the UK Government. For too long, the Tory view has been that the UK voted for Brexit and it’s for everyone else - internally and externally - to suck up the consequences, with UK ministers seemingly scandalised that other countries or even electorates might seek to assert their own sovereignty in response.

Whatever crowd-pleasing red meat Truss might have seen fit to throw to her party membership in the past few weeks, the idea that anyone in No 10 can act unilaterally without facing the consequences of their choices in relations with Brussels, Cardiff, Belfast, Edinburgh or Washington, is something they’d be unwise to try and test further.

A better way forward starts with the UK Government recognising the limits of its own legitimacy/mandates & respecting the competing legitimacy & mandates gained by others.

Some much needed pragmatism over the Northern Ireland Protocol, some basic respect for devolution and a respect for the right of Scots to choose a different, democratic, independent future to one of continued Brexit Britain decline, would be a welcome start.

Welcome, but probably unlikely. Nevertheless, we’d be far from alone in identifying that the root causes for most of the UK’s Government’s poor relationships with others rest entirely with itself, rather than with "everyone else".