Nearly 17,000 kilometers separate London from both Sydney and Melbourne, but the political distance is much shorter. Not only because the parliamentary models of the two countries are very similar (Australia is known as Washminster, a cross between Washington and Westminster with much more of the latter), but above all because both British Labor and Conservatives look at the country from the antipodes looking for trends, ideas and inspiration.
When the Tories were in the dark of opposition at the turn of the millennium, they turned to Australian strategist Lynton Crosby, nicknamed the Wizard of Oz, to regain power. He was the man who had overseen the successful federal election campaigns of 1996, 1998, 2001 and 2004, and made John Howard's government the second longest-lasting in the nation's history. Well connected to America's Republicans, he imported a style of highly negative campaigning, a forerunner of today's culture wars, exploiting nationalist and tribal attitudes such as outright rejection of immigration, and seeing outsiders as a threat to jobs, the well-being, access to services and identity. The principle was to seek the support of socially conservative voters, even if economically they are more progressive.
His record in Britain was not as triumphant as in Australia, losing to the Tories in the 2005 elections. But he orchestrated victories for Boris Johnson in the London mayoral elections in 2008 and 2012, and for the Conservative Party in the generals of 2015 and 2017, without being able to prevent the labor party Sadiq Khan from triumphing in the municipal elections of the English capital. The relief was taken by his pupil and compatriot Isaac Levido, architect of the absolute majority of 2019 under the banner of "let's make Brexit a reality." He remains the main adviser to current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in his difficult bid to stay in Downing Street on promises to reduce illegal immigration, inflation, healthcare queues and public debt, and restore economic growth. . Almost nothing.
Australia is the model from which the Conservatives have modeled their immigration policy of deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda and potentially other countries, and their internment on barges in the meantime. An imitation of what the Canberra government did for a long time, sending immigrants to Papua New Guinea and the island of Nauru in Micronesia, with serious physical and psychological consequences for those affected.
"Settlement in Australia will never be an option for anyone trying to arrive illegally by boat," was the country's official policy. “Settlement in the UK cannot be an option for those arriving by small boat through illegal routes,” Prime Minister Rishi Sunak now says in his bid to reduce the number of asylum seekers crossing the English Channel in small boats. , and that the system has completely collapsed, living in hotels while their cases are processed (a process that lasts even years). London even declares itself willing to leave the European Convention on Human Rights and ignore the sentences of the European courts.
Labor looks at the result of the last Australian elections, in which Anthony Albanese defeated the conservative Scott Morrison. His profile is not very far from that of Keir Starmer, the candidate to occupy Downing Street, that of a leader without particular charisma who won by not scaring voters with radical ideas, not taking risks and not making big promises in economic matters. and tax. Support from women, youth and concern about climate change were decisive factors, and UK Labor is confident three-quarters of the same will happen here. Still his victory was not landslide, and right-wing populism is still alive and well.
Morrison's defeat in Australia was a blow to Rupert Murdoch's media group, which controls major daily newspapers in major cities and campaigned fiercely against Labour. The hand of the communications magnate also reaches Great Britain, where he owns the influential The Sun, The Times and The Sunday Times and does not hide his sympathy for Brexit, although his newspapers never favored a break with Europe in such a way. visceral like the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph.
But before David Cameron, the first British political leader to take out the telescope and focus it on Australia was Tony Blair, who was inspired by the firsts Paul Keating and Bob Hawke for his third way. In politics, seventeen thousand kilometers is nothing.
