Dodging popular UK firebrand may not be PM’s best step
Andrew Brown and Zac de Silva |
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese should have met with Nigel Farage while visiting the UK on the chance the hard-right leader becomes Britain’s next prime minister, a leading analyst says.
Mr Albanese sat down with his counterpart Keir Starmer, other progressive world leaders and British opposition leader Kemi Badenoch on his UK trip.
Mr Farage’s Reform UK party could win the next election and Mr Albanese should have considered sitting down with the former Brexit campaigner, Australian National University senior politics and international relations lecturer Charles Miller said.
“It probably would’ve been a good idea for Anthony Albanese to meet with Nigel Farage,” he told AAP.
Recent polls show Reform’s popularity reaching all-time highs, and one YouGov survey published last week suggests Mr Farage would win a general election.
But Dr Miller said he understood why Mr Albanese chose not to speak with the Reform leader, warning the polls should be taken with “a pinch of salt”.
“Right now Reform are doing very well in the polls. Labour are really unpopular, the Conservatives are really unpopular, but … there’s a long, long way to go before the next British general election,” he said.
While in the UK, Mr Albanese also addressed the British Labour party conference, issuing a rallying cry for democracy and throwing his support behind his beleaguered British counterpart.
“What I see here in UK Labour, is the same determination that I know lives in every member of Australian Labor,” he told the gathering in Liverpool on Sunday.
“An absolute resolve to stand together and defend democracy itself.”
Sir Keir is struggling to manage the dual challenges of Mr Farage’s political resurgence and a rebellious backbench demanding different approaches to certain policies.
Opposition Leader Sussan Ley said Mr Albanese’s appearance at the conference “crossed a line”, because he attended a political event while travelling on the taxpayer’s money.
“He flew to the other side of the world to give a partisan political speech on behalf of a political party in another country,” she told reporters in Albury on Monday.
“That is totally unacceptable.”
But Treasurer Jim Chalmers defended the prime minister, saying the visit was successful and the address wasn’t “especially unusual.”
“That slot at the conference has traditionally been given by a leader of another country,” he told reporters in Canberra.
“He met with both sides of politics while he was in the UK, and the head of state and the prime ministers of Canada and Spain.
“Any objective observer of that would conclude that that was a pretty effective use of the prime minister’s time.”
The coalition claimed there was a double standard with the prime minister’s speech, after Mr Albanese as opposition leader criticised then-prime minister Scott Morrison attending a political rally with Donald Trump during a visit to the US in 2019.
Mr Albanese’s final stop on his way back to Australia is to the United Arab Emirates, where he’ll spruik a free-trade deal signed in 2024.
AAP
