Choosing Tony Abbott as UK trade envoy 'staggering', says Labour

[muriel_volestrangler]

The shadow trade secretary, Emily Thornberry, has condemned reports that Boris Johnson is preparing to appoint the former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott to a senior trade role, calling Abbott a “Trump-worshipping misogynist”.

The Department of Trade declined to comment publicly on Wednesday but insisted no decision had yet been made, after the Sun reported that Abbott would be given a leading role on the board of trade.

Abbott has questioned the existence of the climate crisis, suggesting in 2017 that global warming was “probably doing good”, and compared environmental policies with “primitive people once killing goats to appease the volcano gods”.

He gave a speech to the rightwing Heritage Foundation in Washington DC in January, saying Donald Trump’s presidency had been “quite a success” and his methods were “crude but effective”.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/aug/26/choosing-tony-abbott-uk-trade-envoy-staggering-says-labour

We have enough shit politicians who have been given the boot in the UK; why send out to Australia for one of their worst?

On 14 September 2015, Malcolm Turnbull, the Minister for Communications, resigned and stated his intention to challenge the Liberal Party leadership in a leadership spill. A party-room meeting held that evening saw Abbott defeated by Turnbull on a 54–44 vote. According to The Economist, his demise was a result of poor opinion polling, policy U-turns and gaffes and mean-spirited politics.[180]
...
On 18 May 2019, during the federal election, Abbott lost his seat of Warringah to independent candidate and former Olympic skier Zali Steggall. This came despite the seat being traditionally conservative (it had been held by the Liberals and their predecessors without interruption since 1922).[4] Abbott went into the election holding Warringah on a seemingly insurmountable margin of 61 percent. However, he lost over 12 percent of his primary vote from 2016, and finished over 4,100 votes behind Steggall on the first preference count.[203] This deficit proved too much for Abbott to overcome, and Steggall defeated him on Labor preferences.[204]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Abbott#September_2015_leadership_spill

[T_i_B]

1. Aside from Abbott's terrible track record in Australia...

... And general unfitness to hold office this sends a message to the rest of the world.

A message that Britain values membership of a very right wing clique over talent and knowledge, and that UK trade policy is being driven by heavily partisan idealogy over everything else. Do the Tories understand that not every government they need to negotiate with is rabidly right wing?

[LeftishBrit]

2. I wouldn't even have thought that an ex-PM from another country would be eligible for such a

post in the UK.

I mean. We 'Brexit' to get sovereignty and reduce influence of furriners, and then we get a trade envoy from 10,000 miles away!

And wouldn't Abbott also regard it as a bit of a demotion?

[Matilda]

3. Thereby hangs a tale.

Abbott was born in Britain. When he, courtesy of Rupert Murdoch, became Prime Minister of Australia, there were many questions asked about whether or not he'd renounced his British citizenship, because otherwise the appointment would be illegal.

He swore he had, and even produced some documents to prove it, but funny thing was, they didn't look like anybody else's renunciation documents from Britain. They didn't have official stamps, and even a different signature to other people's certificates. But nobody within the parliament seemed inclined to pursue the issue.

I wonder if you asked him now - would he say it's all okay, because he never renounced his British citizenship, so the appointment is perfectly legal?