Tony Abbott’s influence in UK politics continues
Tony Abbott is due to appear at the Conservative Party’s upcoming conference, as his links with Britain tighten after he was appointed to his controversial trade role.
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Exclusive: Tony Abbott is due to appear at the Conservative Party’s conference this weekend, as his links with Britain tighten.
The virtual conference, which will be held via video conference calls, includes sessions with Britain’s International Trade secretary Liz Truss on Sunday night Australian time.
News Corp Australia understands Australia’s former Prime Minister was expected to dial in to a session with Ms Truss, who is currently negotiating a free trade deal with Australia.
Mr Abbott’s expected appearance at the conference — a month after he was controversially appointed to the UK’s Board of Trade — was a further sign of his influence in Britain.
There are now plans being considered to buy up old cruise ships or ferries and to moor them in the English Channel to process asylum seekers.
The idea was floated after a spike in people trying to come across the channel this summer, according to The Times of London.
The plans were replicating Australia’s border policy, which was hardened under Mr Abbott’s national reign.
Downing Street backed Mr Abbott for the new trade role despite a campaign against him because of his previous comments about same sex marriage and women.
He said when he was appointed to the job that he hoped a UK-Australia trade deal could be inked and pointed to the deals Australia did with China, Japan and Korea while he was Prime Minister.
He also spoke at the 2019 Conservative Party conference, where he argued for Brexit.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said at the time of Mr Abbott’s appointment: “What I would say about Tony Abbott is this is a guy who was elected by the great liberal democratic nation of Australia.”
The Conservative Party conference, a major political event, comes at a difficult time for Mr Johnson as he tries to navigate a second coronavirus wave and rescue the UK economy.
His backbenchers have sparked a revolt over the confusing, patchwork lockdown rules currently in place across the UK.
Mr Johnson said early on Thursday morning Australian time that he did not want another national lockdown, despite coronavirus cases in Britain remaining over 7000 per day.
Britain still has to finalise Brexit before December 31, with an agreement needed weeks to allow enough time for it to be signed off in Brussels.
British Labour MP Emily Thornberry, spokeswoman for International Trade, said before Mr Abbott’s appointment that she was concerned about his role.
“This is someone with no hands-on experience of negotiating trade agreements, who denies the climate change that we believe should be at the heart of our trade policy, and who clearly has no concept of the importance of Britain’s trade with the EU,” she said.
ABBOTT ‘INFLUENCING’ PLAN TO DUMP REFUGEES
Britain has looked to house asylum seekers on volcanic outcrop island refugee centres 6500km away from their shores, in what some officials have blamed on Australia’s unwanted influence on its former mother country.
Home Office officials were asked to explore building asylum processing centres in the South Atlantic on Ascension Island and St Helena, to discourage the annual 34,000 migrants registering for asylum on the UK.
According to Whitehall, the idea of using remote islands, that sit between the coast of Africa and Brazil, was based on Australia’s boat stopping program using Nauru and Papua New Guinea centres to discourage arrivals.
No decision has been made but the request by the British Home Secretary Priti Patel for her department to scope the option has been cited as “further evidence” of former prime minister Tony Abbott’s influence on British PM Boris Johnson.
Mr Abbott was recently appointed as trade adviser to the Johnson government and met with Ms Patel recently although her departmental scoping began prior to the meeting.
Mr Abbott’s unpaid appointment as a trade envoy earlier this month has already attracted criticism from both sides of UK politics, with the outspoken former Australian politician branded an unwanted “agent of foreign influence” by the British press. This is despite his expertise in negotiating tricky trade circles in the Asia Pacific, something Mr Johnson has said was desperately needed by his government in a post-Brexit world.
Mr Abbott’s strong stance on immigration are well known both in Australia and in Britain where he made headlines as prime minister 2013-2015 as are his connections in the conservative politics in both the UK and the US.
Britons are now reacting with fury at the “illegal migrant” centres being proposed and again blaming Australia for instilling the idea.
There were no such protests when the British government cited Australia’s successful Medicare as a model being considered for its ailing NHS public healthcare system.
The British press has confirmed Whitehall had been looking at the option at the directing of Ms Patel but she now appeared to be going cold on the idea.
This was in part due to scoping by the Foreign Office unable to mirror the Royal Australian Navy’s ability to assist in re-directing ships, mainly because the British islands were so far away from the UK.
By the end of last month more than 5000 people have crossed the Channel to England in dinghies, more than double seen in the whole of 2019.
“We have been looking at how other countries have been dealing with this issue,” said one well-placed individual told the Financial Times. “We have been scoping everything. No decisions have been made by ministers.”
Ascension has left than 1000 inhabitants but a large RAF base and an Anglo-American signals intelligence facility and space tracking station.
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Home Affairs would neither confirm nor deny what its future plans were
“As ministers have said we are developing plans to reform policies and laws around illegal migration and asylum to ensure we are able to provide protection to those who need it, while preventing abuse of the system and the criminality associated with it,” an official said in a statement issued to the British media.