Peta Credlin: ‘Brexit election’ a massive deal for Australia

After months of political paralysis, Brits will have the opportunity to vote in a government that respects their Brexit wishes – and the outcome will have a huge impact on Australia, writes Peta Credlin.

It’s a basic rule of the Westminster system that a government that can’t get its program through the parliament is entitled to ask for an election.

For months now, the British parliament has been making democracy impossible: not letting the government govern and denying the election that was needed to produce a parliament that would facilitate leaving the EU.

For months, the opposition Labour Party had been both accusing PM Boris Johnson of being a dictator and demanding an election – yet voting against one whenever Johnson proposed it. Yet Labour wasn’t the only villain here.

MORE FROM PETA CREDLIN: Come on Britain — where’s your ‘keep calm and carry on’?

The supposedly impartial speaker broke with centuries of tradition to try to sabotage the government’s Brexit plans; and the relatively-recently-created UK Supreme Court took the unprecedented step of subjecting the executive’s prerogative to judicial oversight.

Britain's Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow departs the House of Commons Chamber for the final time as Speaker on Thursday. His actions broke with centuries of tradition, writes Peta Credlin. Picture: Jessica Taylor/AFP

The Establishment has been fighting a ferocious rearguard action to overturn the 2016 Brexit referendum, either via a second vote to correct the people’s “mistake” or a Brexit that kept the UK entirely within the EU system but without any say over its rules.

If you can’t leave without a deal, you can’t really leave because you’re effectively giving the EU a veto.

Unlike his predecessor, Johnson instinctively understood this and used the threat of a no-deal Brexit to extract a better one.

MORE FROM PETA CREDLIN: Brexit is a warning alarm for Australia’s future

At last, voters will have the chance to elect a parliament that will respect the Brexit referendum result.

Britain's Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader Boris Johnson (L) and Britain's main opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn (R). A Corbyn government would pursue a radical socialist agenda, writes Peta Credlin. Picture: Ben Stansall/AFP

This is an important election for Australia too because a British Labour government would not just mean Britain staying, humiliated, within an EU that despised it but would mean full-scale socialism for the world’s fifth largest economy and the abandonment of Britain’s nuclear deterrent.

A trade deal with post-Brexit Britain should be a priority for the Australian government.

This should be far easier to reach than an EU deal that would require the unanimous support of the 27 countries that remain.