If Jeremy Corbyn wins UK election Australia will wind back intelligence sharing, Alexander Downer says

Australia’s former UK high commissioner warns of Labour leader abandoning support for western alliance.

Former Foreign Minister and British High Commissioner Alexander Downer speaks at National Press Club in Canberra. Picture: Getty Images

Former foreign minister Alexander Downer has said Australia should wind back intelligence sharing with the United Kingdom if Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn wins next month’s election.

In a stinging rebuke of Mr Corbyn, Mr Downer said the Labour MP and his leadership team were “unsympathetic to and hostile to western interests” and a Corbyn win on December 12 would change the nature of Australia’s engagement with the UK.

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Mr Downer, Australia’s high commissioner to the UK from 2014 to 2018, admitted he wanted Mr Corbyn to lose the British poll and gave Prime Minister Boris Johnson a 70 per cent chance of success.

Britain's Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn. Picture: Getty Images

“Under a Corbyn government, they will abandon that support for the western alliance and steer a completely different foreign policy and security policy direction to such an extent that I think we would be unwise to continue the intelligence sharing relationship with a Corbyn-led Britain of the kind we have today and have had under Gordon Brown and Tony Blair and so on over the years,” Mr Downer told the National Press Club.

“That would have to change.”

The sharing of intelligence with the UK through Five Eyes – an alliance comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the United States – would be reduced.

“We would substantially wind it back. We would have to be very careful what sort of intelligence we shared with the government, we would have to be very careful because of the foreign policy stance of Jeremy Corbyn and the cohorts around him,” Mr Downer said.

“(They have) engaged as friends and allies with people like Hamas, Hezbollah in the Middle East, the Iranians, the Venezuelans and so on as even the Maduro regime and Chavez regime before. These are people who are totally hostile to the traditions of Western security policy.”

Australian Strategic Policy Institute executive director Peter Jennings said it was a possibility Australia would share less with the UK if Mr Corbyn won.

There was a precedent of that occurring with one of Australia’s Five Eyes partners when New Zealand initiated a nuclear-free zone in its territorial waters and was frozen out of the ANZUS alliance.

“There is no doubt Corbyn has brought quite a radical left agenda to British defence and security,” Mr Jennings said.

“What would emerge by way of British foreign and defence policy under a Corbyn government is very hard to determine. What one sees of Labour policy, it’s pretty unattractive. It would certainly complicate what we might be able to do with them in terms of our own bilateral interests.”

Mr Corbyn’s antinuclear stance, distaste for US President Donald Trump and “pretty obvious anti-Semitism” would also be problematic.

Foreign Minister Marise Payne declined to comment on Mr Downer’s remarks, as did her Labor counterpart Penny Wong.

Mr Downer conceded most Labour MPs in the UK were centre-left but claimed the party’s leadership was something not seen in a major political party.

In a speech centred on Brexit, Mr Downer said the UK leaving the European Union would ensure Australia gained better access to Britain’s market.

“There’s a 70 per cent chance that the Conservative Party under Boris Johnson will win the election. But if they don’t win outright, then expect Jeremy Corbyn to be the prime minister,” Mr Downer said.

“And my last word on this is do you think that matters? Or is that just a matter of general interest? I’ll tell you it matters hugely to us.”

Mr Downer said the UK was Australia’s second most important security partner, representing a “very intimate” and important relationship.

He claimed there would also be economic impacts for Australia if Mr Corbyn was able to implement his “radical economic agenda”, which would put investments at risk.