Budapest Post

Cum Deo pro Patria et Libertate
Budapest, Europe and world news

Australia has shown how quickly the right can crumble. Boris Johnson, be warned

Australia has shown how quickly the right can crumble. Boris Johnson, be warned

The ousting of shameless culture warrior Scott Morrison should send a shiver down Tory spines, says Guardian columnist Gaby Hinsliff
Populists can be beaten. There was a time not long ago when few could type that sentence with confidence, so the outcome of Australia’s recent elections will leave many progressives battling with the still unfamiliar sensation of victory.

Scott Morrison, the now ousted rightwing prime minister dubbed Australia’s first “post-truth” leader, was never quite a Trumpian. But he was a shameless culture warrior presiding over a bungled Covid response and ensuing recession, plus a clumsy response to high-profile sexual misconduct allegations against parliamentary colleagues. He dragged his feet on the climate crisis even as apocalyptic floods, fires and droughts were convincing Australians that something had to change, and holidayed in Hawaii as wildfires raged at home. His opponent, Labor’s Anthony Albanese, was not exactly overburdened with charisma and the progressive vote eventually split between Labor, the Greens and the so-called teal independents, an exasperated army of mainly female candidates pledging to clean up politics and tackle the climate. But the cautious Albanese and his mantra of “safe change” – nothing too big or scarily radical – still made it over the line, having seemingly learned from a previous Labor defeat blamed on an over-ambitious manifesto. If any of this sounds uncannily familiar to British readers, then it’s easy to see why Keir Starmer’s Labour party (and indeed the Greens) might suddenly have their tails up.

First Donald Trump, then Marine Le Pen in the French presidential elections, now Morrison. This toppling of rightwing dominoes creates the sense of momentum British progressives have been missing. Now there are successful campaign architects to learn from overseas, and new ideas being road-tested in government; there will be friends in strategic places, perhaps new energy behind global efforts to combat the climate crisis, and the morale-boosting idea that the zeitgeist might finally be with them. You can almost feel the pendulum swinging away from a polarising and ultimately grubby era back towards a politics at least vaguely connected to truth and reality. Or at least you can if you want to badly enough.

For a more cynical way of looking at this is that two years in, Biden’s ratings have sunk far enough to give Republicans plenty of hope for next time; Le Pen still got way too many votes for comfort; Albanese’s victory was not thumping; and Britain’s first-past-the-post system makes similar Green breakthroughs or progressive alliances harder here. Nor is Australia, which shifted rightwards in 1996 just as Britain was doing the reverse, historically a very reliable political weathervane.

All that said, what should send a shiver down Tory spines is that Morrison’s aggressively divisive approach to issues such as immigration and his pursuit of socially conservative Labor voters seemingly cost his party dear in its wealthier, more metropolitan former heartlands. The nagging fear some Conservatives have that a diet of sleaze, culture wars and threats to tear up the Brexit deal will only lose them Tory votes in Worthing or Surrey has just played out on a big screen Down Under, producing roughly the kind of electoral realignment they fear.

What makes this otherwise faraway election feel closer to home is that the Australian right’s thinking remains core to Boris Johnson’s project. Priti Patel’s plan to export asylum seekers to Rwanda mirrors an Australian scheme to send refugees to Papua New Guinea, and she recently hired the man who negotiated that deal to lead a review of Britain’s Border Force. Lynton Crosby, the 65-year-old Australian campaigns guru who enjoys near-legendary status in the Conservative party, doesn’t personally run campaigns any more but he still takes the odd phone call; his protege Isaac Levido ran Johnson’s successful 2019 campaign, months after helping deliver a surprise victory for Morrison. David Canzini, the new deputy chief of staff installed at Downing Street to restore order post-Partygate, has also worked closely with Crosby. Interestingly the same questions asked in recent years about Crosby’s companies and their past relationships with the fossil fuel industry are now being asked in Whitehall, as the government wrestles with what to do about soaring gas bills.

The Treasury is visibly warming to the idea of a windfall tax on oil and gas companies, just so long as it doesn’t look like Labour’s windfall tax plan. But reports that Downing Street considers such a move “un-Conservative” have set rumours swirling. Johnson has never noticeably cared whether something is or isn’t conservative, if it’s popular. But Canzini cares. He is close to the pro-Brexit, low-tax, strongly ideological Tory right in Britain, some of whom also happen to be hostile to the net-zero agenda and may prefer to see fuel bills cut by scrapping green taxes (which fund the development of renewable energies in the longer term) than introducing new taxes.

The outcome of all this wrangling obviously matters most to people who can’t pay their heating bills, but it’s a litmus test of Downing Street’s intentions too. If the windfall tax doesn’t happen some may begin to wonder – as an unnamed MP suggested recently to the Times – about the government’s commitment to ban the installation of new gas boilers by 2035. Does Johnson really want to go into an election arguing with outraged pensioners who can’t afford to replace their central heating? Or is this bold climate policy too at risk of being deemed a “barnacle on the boat”, that famous Crosby shorthand for anything that creates unnecessary friction or muddies the message?

Contrary to popular belief, Crosby disciples don’t just blindly run the same hard-right campaign every time. Instead his hallmark is clarity, or the disciplined repetition of one key message carefully tailored to electoral circumstances, excluding everything else. That was as true of the London mayoral campaign he ran, pitching Johnson as a cuddly liberal, as of Levido’s tub-thumping “Get Brexit Done” campaign. But campaigns are ultimately just strategies for helping a party survive in office; they’re not necessarily about providing what a country actually needs. What’s interesting about Australia is that voters seem to have been pragmatically focused on the latter.

Morrison was found wanting in thoroughly practical ways by climate emergencies and Covid. Some of Le Pen’s wilder ideas about tackling the cost of living crisis fell apart under scrutiny. Donald Trump did not make America great again. Simple answers to complex problems appeal, but they don’t actually work, and when that becomes painfully obvious – whether because wildfire smoke is choking your Melbourne suburb, or because your export business is collapsing thanks to Brexit – then populists become vulnerable. Perhaps the most useful lesson to take from Australia is that bad politics can still melt on contact with inconvenient truths. That feeling you vaguely recognise, but can’t quite put a finger on? That would be hope.
AI Disclaimer: An advanced artificial intelligence (AI) system generated the content of this page on its own. This innovative technology conducts extensive research from a variety of reliable sources, performs rigorous fact-checking and verification, cleans up and balances biased or manipulated content, and presents a minimal factual summary that is just enough yet essential for you to function as an informed and educated citizen. Please keep in mind, however, that this system is an evolving technology, and as a result, the article may contain accidental inaccuracies or errors. We urge you to help us improve our site by reporting any inaccuracies you find using the "Contact Us" link at the bottom of this page. Your helpful feedback helps us improve our system and deliver more precise content. When you find an article of interest here, please look for the full and extensive coverage of this topic in traditional news sources, as they are written by professional journalists that we try to support, not replace. We appreciate your understanding and assistance.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
Wave of Complaints Against Apple Over iPhone 17 Pro’s Scratch Sensitivity
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Trump Says Ukraine Can Fully Restore Borders with NATO Backing
Europe Signals Stronger Support for Taiwan at Major Taipei Defence Show
Germany Weighs Excluding France from Key European Fighter Jet Programme
Cyberattack Disrupts Check-in and Boarding Systems at Major European Airports
Björn Borg Breaks Silence: Memoir Reveals Addiction, Shame and Cancer Battle
When Extremism Hijacks Idealism: How the Baader-Meinhof Gang Emerged and Fell
JWST Data Brings TRAPPIST-1e Closer to Earth-Like Habitability
Trump Orders $100,000 Fee on H-1B Visas and Launches ‘Gold Card’ Immigration Pathway
France’s Looming Budget Crisis and Political Fracture Raise Fears of Becoming Europe’s “Sick Man”
Three Russian MiG-31 Jets Breach Estonian Airspace in ‘Unprecedentedly Brazen’ NATO Incident
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
The conservative right spreads westward: a huge achievement for 'Alternative for Germany' in local elections
Pope Leo Warns of Societal Crisis Over Mega-CEO Pay, Citing Tesla’s Proposed Trillion-Dollar Package
Poland Green-Lights NATO Deployment in Response to Major Russian Drone Incursion
U.S. and China Agree on Framework to Shift TikTok to American Ownership
Le Pen Tightens the Pressure on Macron as France Edges Toward Political Breakdown
Czech Republic signs €1.34 billion contract for Leopard 2A8 main battle tanks with delivery from 2028
Penske Media Sues Google Over “AI Overviews,” Claiming It Uses Journalism Without Consent and Destroys Traffic
Indian Student Engineers Propose “Project REBIRTH” to Protect Aircraft from Crashes Using AI, Airbags and Smart Materials
One in Three Europeans Now Uses TikTok, According to the Chinese Tech Giant
Could AI Nursing Robots Help Healthcare Staffing Shortages?
NATO Deploys ‘Eastern Sentry’ After Russian Drones Violate Polish Airspace
The New Life of Novak Djokovic
German police raid AfD lawmaker’s offices in inquiry over Chinese payments
Volkswagen launches aggressive strategy to fend off Chinese challenge in Europe’s EV market
France Erupts in Mass ‘Block Everything’ Protests on New PM’s First Day
×