UK-Australia free-trade deal a priority after Brexit ratification
As Boris Johnson moves to ratify Brexit following his spectacular win at the polls, the UK Prime Minister has revealed that striking a free-trade deal with Australia will be a top priority.
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UK Prime Minister Boris John will made a free-trade deal between Britain and Australia a priority following his huge win at the polls.
Mr Johnson spoke with Scott Morrison on Saturday night and discussed moving to a trade deal as soon as possible.
The Australian reports negotiations are set to restart next year following the ratification of Brexit, and a final deal could be struck within the next two months.
Mr Morrison said: “We had a discussion about the FTA … and we are ready to engage on it with him.”
“He had it high on the list of things to do and he was optimistic.
“We are very aspirational in what we can achieve.”
Shadow treasurer Jim Chalmers said Labor would work constructively to get such an agreement.
“We want to make sure that any new trade deal is good for Australia and good for Australian workers,” he told Sky News on Sunday
“But really, the sooner . we can get a new relationship with the UK post-Brexit the better.”
BORIS’ WILD PARTY AFTER SPECTACULAR ELECTION WIN
Boris Johnson doesn’t have the moves like Jagger, but he partied with the Rolling Stones star after his earthquake election win.
The newly anointed Prime Minister joined Mick Jagger, Princess Beatrice and her fiance Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi and Princess Eugenie among the guests at the Christmas party of newspaper tycoon Evgeny Lebedev, who owns the London Evening Standard.
The Russian throws a party at his north London property each year and Mr Johnson, 55, and his girlfriend Carrie Symonds, 31, were among the A-list guests.
The party, on Saturday Australian time (Friday night in London), came as Britain digested the biggest Conservative election victory since Margaret Thatcher in 1987.
Later on Saturday, Mr Johnson did a victory lap in former British Labour prime minister Tony Blair’s old seat of Sedgefield, in England’s north east.
The Conservatives picked up the seat as it smashed Labour’s red wall of traditional heartland seats in the working class north of England.
Speaking at the Sedgefield Cricket Club, Mr Johnson promised to be a leader for the whole country, not just the out of touch London elite, for which his rival Jeremy Corbyn was criticised.
“We believe in giving opportunity to everyone,” he said.
“We believe that talent is evenly distributed throughout our country, but opportunity is unfairly distributed.
“We are going to rectify that ... as a people’s government, that is what we are going to do.”
The Conservatives held back their spending promises before the election in order to show budgetary responsibility while Labour spent taxpayer cash like a man with no arms.
But they did set aside $A155 billion for building projects, which was now being considered to spent in the north of England to voters who delivered the emphatic Conservative win.
The money for the deprived middle and north of the country is much needed as London continues to be a powerhouse while the rest of the country struggles.
Mr Johnson said that his party members were the “servants, not the masters” of the voters as he pledged to get Britain out of the European Union by January 31.
“It is getting Brexit done but it is also delivering on our National Health Service, our education, safer streets, better hospitals, a better future for our country,” he said.
“We are going to recover our national self-confidence, our mojo, our self-belief. It is going to be a wonderful, wonderful time for our country. Our country will stand tall in the world.”
Meanwhile, Labour’s deputy leader John McDonnell who announced he would stand down, was blaming everyone but himself for his party’s worst result since 1935.
“I think we have to have a wider debate here about the role of social media and the media overall, and sometimes the nature of our politics,” he said,
“I don’t want to live in a society where those sorts of lies and smears and character-assassination dominate our politics. Let’s have an honest debate about the issues.
“It isn’t about individuals, it is about policies and analysis.”
Other guests at Mr Lebedev’s party included former UK prime minister David Cameron and his wife Samantha, along with Mr Johnson’s sister Rachel.
It was the first time that Rachel met Ms Symonds in person, with the couple only dating since late last year.
Sir Bob Geldof and Baywatch star David Hasselhoff were also there, along with former Dr Who and The Crown actor Matt Smith, comedian David Walliams, and singer James Blunt.
The Princesses’ attendance was significant as they try to shake off the anchor of their father Prince Andrew’s disastrous association with notorious paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
The Duke of York, a regular on the London social scene, would have been previously on the guest list. He was linked to charities set up by Mr Lededev but has been keeping a low profile after the Queen, at the insistence of Prince Charles, ordered him to retire early following his interview on the BBC where he arrogantly showed no compassion for Epstein’s victims.
BORIS JOHNSON’S NEXT MOVE TO GET UK OUT OF EU
A triumphant Boris Johnson will begin getting Britain out of the European Union on Monday but he’s told Scottish voters he wants to keep them in the UK.
The newly elected British Prime Minister, who has become a rockstar in his party after securing a poll-defying 80 seat majority, vowed to heal the nation.
He said he would repay the trust that many former Labour voters showed in him by voting Conservative, many for the first time.
“Now is the moment, precisely as we leave the EU, to let those natural feelings find renewed expression in building a new partnership,” Mr Johnson said outside No. 10 Downing Street.
“I frankly urge everyone on either side of what are, after three and a half years, increasingly arid argument, I urge everyone to find closure and to let the healing begin.”
Parliament is due to be back on this Tuesday, with a spartan version of the Queen’s speech, where the monarch traditionally sets out her government’s plans, happening on Thursday.
The Brexit bill, which was already supported in principle, could be tabled as early as Friday or Monday next week, allowing enough time for the UK to get out of the EU by the January 31 deadline.
Mr Johnson, 55, has pledged this will be the “people’s government” after parliament ignored the result of the Brexit referendum for three and a half years.
His proud dad Stanley Johnson, 79, said many voters would be surprised at his son’s views, amid analysis that his monster majority will allow him more freedom to negotiate with the EU.
“I’ve got to say, all this stuff about him being a right-wing populist, that’s not the child I knew, he was pro-European,” he said on Britain’s Channel 4.
“Of course he was pro-European. Okay folks, why do you think he is called Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson? Because he’s got about four streaks of Europeanism in his pedigree.
“It is in his DNA, that is a man who is as European as you can think of. What this government is going to do is rebuild a bridge to Europe that is going to be so strong it can never be blown down.”
Later, Mr Johnson’s sister Rachel was asked about his girlfriend Carrie Symonds, 31, who has moved into No. 10 Downing Street with him.
“I’ve never met her,” Miss Johnson said on Good Morning Britain.
It isn’t the only split in his family - his brother Jo Johnson quit as an MP in September during the middle of the Brexit debate crisis.
The Conservatives win was the largest Tory majority since 1987 - 365 seats to Labour’s 203 - and the biggest win of any government since 2001.
Political editor at The Sun newspaper in London, Tom Newton Dunn, said the win would lead to a slightly softer Brexit with deep security co-operation.
World leaders called Mr Johnson, including Germany’s Angela Merkel where they discussed Brexit.
The PM also spoke to Scottish National Party leader Nicola Sturgeon yesterday after her party cleaned up 48 of the 59 seats there, which she claimed was a mandate for a second referendum on independence.
Mr Johnson told her of his “unwavering commitment to strengthening the union”, according to a Downing Street spokesman.
“The Prime Minister made clear how he remained opposed to a second independence referendum, standing with the majority of people in Scotland who do not want to return to division and uncertainty,” said the Number 10 spokesman.
Scottish voters rejected independence in 2014, with the no vote hitting 55 per cent, a lead of 400,000 votes.
Tone deaf Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who oversaw his party’s worst result since 1935 prompting an existential crisis for the former party of the working class, is hanging on to his job for months.
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And he moaned his abysmal result was the “media’s” fault rather than a complete rejection of his high-taxing, extreme Left policies.
“I have pride in our manifesto that we put forward and all our policies we put forward that actually had huge public support on issues of universal credit, the green industrial revolution and investment for the future,” he said.
“But this election was taken over ultimately by Brexit and we as a party represent people who vote remain and leave, my whole strategy was to reach out beyond the Brexit divide to try to bring people together.”
Former South Australian premier Mike Rann said Labour needed to get rid of its anti-Semitism element, which also contributed to the loss.
“The first step for Labour in the UK should be to adopt a zero tolerance approach to racism,” he said.
“It should start by exorcising those in its ranks who have stained the party’s reputation by espousing antisemitism.”
Alexander Downer, former Australian High Commissioner to the UK, said: “The battlers abandoned Labour.”
The Queen gave Mr Johnson her blessing as her 14th Prime Minister yesterday when he visited her to officially inform her of the election result.
Mr Johnson will also have to reshape his cabinet and there are reports he was considering dumping his Chancellor Sajid Javid, who clashed with him over his plans to open the country’s purse strings.
Ms Sturgeon said yesterday: “You (Mr Johnson), as the leader of a defeated party in Scotland, have no right to stand in the way.
“The people of Scotland have spoken. It is time now to decide our own future.”
- with staff writers
Originally published as UK-Australia free-trade deal a priority after Brexit ratification