Speaker 1: You can listen to the Front on your smart speaker
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Speaker 1: the news from the Australian. From the Australian, Here's what's
Speaker 1: on the Front. I'm Claire Harvey. It's Monday, July eighth.
Speaker 1: The Federal Court has convened a special panel of judges
Speaker 1: to tackle a wave of constitutional challenges engulfing the legal
Speaker 1: system in the wake of a landmark High Court decision
Speaker 1: that freed asylum seekers from indefinite detention, including some convicted
Speaker 1: of serious violent offending. That exclusive Byrienne and Down is
Speaker 1: live now at the Australian dot com dot au. A
Speaker 1: pro Palestine organization called the Muslim Vote, which helped five
Speaker 1: independent candidates win seats in the UK, will this week
Speaker 1: announce its candidates here in Australia. It's one of the
Speaker 1: many reasons Australia's politicians are anxiously analyzing Britain's stunning election results,
Speaker 1: which swept Labored to power and threw up a whole
Speaker 1: new set of challenges for the major parties. That's today's episode.
Speaker 1: American presidents get months to move into the White House.
Speaker 1: That means they also get months to move out when
Speaker 1: their term is over. Things move much faster in Britain,
Speaker 1: your mutest As the UK's newly elected Prime Minister, Labour's
Speaker 1: Keir Starmer shook hands with the King and engaged in
Speaker 1: a few moments of awkward chit chat. Ready the new
Speaker 1: tenant at ten Downing Street and Rishi Sunak, with his
Speaker 1: wife and daughters, was out as Labor absorbed it's stunning majority,
Speaker 1: more than four hundred and ten seats out of the
Speaker 1: six hundred and fifty seat House of Commons. There was
Speaker 1: a party, we did it, and then a somber first speech.
Speaker 2: If I asked you now whether you believe that Britain
Speaker 2: will be better for your children, I know too many
Speaker 2: of you would say no.
Speaker 3: Here Stormer has entered the Host of Commons with a
Speaker 3: staggering majority, the second biggest since the Second World War.
Speaker 1: Richard Ferguson is the Australian's National Chief of Staff.
Speaker 3: He could be Prime Minister for a decade. He's already
Speaker 3: thinking about the next election. But this is a majority
Speaker 3: that's on Schiki grown. This is a majority that relied
Speaker 3: very heavily on people hating the Tories rather than loving Labor.
Speaker 3: The calling this the loveless Lanslade.
Speaker 1: Starmer has spent four years rebuilding Labour's lost soul after
Speaker 1: it was thrashed by the Tories in twenty nineteen. Surrounded
Speaker 1: by a cloud of distaste about the anti Semitism former
Speaker 1: leader Jeremy Corbyn had allowed to flourish within the party,
Speaker 1: Starmer sacked Corbyn from Labor altogether, the first step in
Speaker 1: a reset where Starmer proved himself politically ruthless.
Speaker 2: My government will fight every day until you believe again.
Speaker 2: From now on you have a government unburdened by doctrine,
Speaker 2: guided only by the determination to serve your interest, to
Speaker 2: defy quietly those who have written our country off.
Speaker 1: Starmer and his wife have two teenagers, a boy and
Speaker 1: a girl, but until now their names have been kept
Speaker 1: secret at the request of the Starmers, respected by the
Speaker 1: UK press. Victorias Starmer has Jewish heritage, and Starmer has
Speaker 1: previously revealed their children have been raised in the traditions
Speaker 1: of that faith. It was reported in the days after
Speaker 1: the election that the kids didn't want to leave their
Speaker 1: home in London's inner suburbs. However, it's expected they will
Speaker 1: move into Downing Street, the Row of seventeenth century townhouses
Speaker 1: with offices on the ground floor and the living quarters above.
Speaker 1: Margaret Thatcher called it living over the shop. The Starmers
Speaker 1: are still unpacking, but they'll move into the interconnected living
Speaker 1: quarters above number eleven Downing Street, where there are four bedrooms,
Speaker 1: rather than the much smaller two bedroom flat above number ten.
Speaker 1: Starmer is already indicating he'll be different. He said. Throughout
Speaker 1: his career he has finished work at six on Fridays
Speaker 1: while working as a chief prosecutor and as a human
Speaker 1: rights barrister, and he says he has no intention of
Speaker 1: changing that habit.
Speaker 3: In many ways, Kers Starmer is the opposite of now
Speaker 3: a few prime ministers ago Boris Johnson, and that we
Speaker 3: don't know anything about him really at all. With Boris Johnson,
Speaker 3: we obviously knew every affair, every illicit detail. Even if
Speaker 3: he wouldn't tell us how many kids he had, we
Speaker 3: knew there were at least a couple that he wasn't
Speaker 3: admitting about. But with Kers Starmer, you know, we know
Speaker 3: his wife, Victoria works in the NHS, the National Health Service.
Speaker 3: We know that they've got a number of children, but
Speaker 3: we don't know their names. We don't know what they
Speaker 3: look like. He's also different than say Tony Blair and
Speaker 3: Margaret Thatcher, whose children were very much a part of
Speaker 3: their lives and of their Prime ministerships. And we're out
Speaker 3: there and used kind of his political props sometimes with
Speaker 3: the Starmer family. It's all very very private. It's all
Speaker 3: very much business up front, says.
Speaker 1: The children have asked to get a dog, and there's
Speaker 1: already a cat in residence at Downing Street, a rescue
Speaker 1: named Larry who's lived there for thirteen years. Kirstarma will
Speaker 1: be Larry's sixth Prime minister. Even though Labor only got
Speaker 1: thirty four percent of the vote, it's getting more than
Speaker 1: sixty four percent of the seats. That's because of Britain's
Speaker 1: voting system, First past the post means the person in
Speaker 1: each constituency who wins the greatest number of votes gets
Speaker 1: the seat. That's a stark difference from Australia, where the
Speaker 1: major parties often have to rely on preferences flowing from
Speaker 1: smaller parties.
Speaker 3: What Libra did and what the Liberal Democrats who came
Speaker 3: number three and the elections did very well as they
Speaker 3: plead the first past the poorest game. So instead of
Speaker 3: focusing on national vote share. They poured all of their
Speaker 3: resources into the seats they knew that they could win
Speaker 3: a plurality of votsen, particularly for Libra. It was in Scotland,
Speaker 3: so there were really boosted by a huge sweep against
Speaker 3: the Scottish Nationalists who have been very dominant in Scotland
Speaker 3: for the past decade. But Labor has swept all those
Speaker 3: seats in Glasgow and Edinburgh back and the Liberal Democrats
Speaker 3: only had a very tiny national vote share increase too,
Speaker 3: but they had massive increases in the seats that they
Speaker 3: targeted in kind of affluent Tory areas a little bit
Speaker 3: like the Tales here, that they knew they would get
Speaker 3: the votes in. They didn't have a formal deal Labor
Speaker 3: and the Liberal Democrats, but Labor basically ran dead in
Speaker 3: seats where the Liberal Democrats would do well against the Tories,
Speaker 3: and the Liberal Democrats ran dead in the seats where
Speaker 3: they knew that Labor were the best challenges of the Tories.
Speaker 1: Downing Street's previous tenant, Rishi Sunac, couldn't hide the pain
Speaker 1: as he fronted up for the Conservatives blunders in front
Speaker 1: of that famous black door.
Speaker 3: I would like to say first and foremost, I am sorry.
Speaker 3: It was the biggest collapse in the Tory of war whatever.
Speaker 3: And I think Rishie Sonac's position was irretrievable the minute
Speaker 3: he walked into Number ten Downing Street, Claire. Because of
Speaker 3: Les Truss. So Les Truss obviously was the Prime minister
Speaker 3: for only seven weeks. She was the Queen's last prime minister.
Speaker 3: But she only lasted seven weeks because of a disastrous
Speaker 3: mini budget which sought, you know, a kind of a
Speaker 3: radical lazzi fair agenda. But what she did in that
Speaker 3: instance was she spooked the markets. But then she tied
Speaker 3: the Conservatives to a massive rise in interest rates. And
Speaker 3: the minute any political party is tied to the rising
Speaker 3: of interest rates, Claire, no matter where you are in
Speaker 3: the world, that is very bad news.
Speaker 1: The Tories lost more than two hundred and fifty seats
Speaker 1: to see it one hundred and twenty one seats out
Speaker 1: of six fifty, the Conservative Party's worst result in its
Speaker 1: entire one hundred and ninety year history. Kis Down says
Speaker 1: it's down to business. He's promising to put the VAT,
Speaker 1: Britain's equivalent of a GST on private school fees and
Speaker 1: to fix the creaking National Health Service, as well as
Speaker 1: a prisons crisis. Britain's jails are full and defenders are
Speaker 1: being released after serving half their terms to make room
Speaker 1: for more. And then there's unauthorized migration. So far this year,
Speaker 1: more than thirteen thousand migrants have arrived in the UK
Speaker 1: via small boats across the English Channel. The Tories wanted
Speaker 1: to send them to Rwanda in a fix inspired by
Speaker 1: John Howard's Pacific solution, but Keir Starmer says that's off.
Speaker 2: Look, the ride scheme was dead and barer before it started.
Speaker 2: It's never been a deterrent. Look at the numbers that
Speaker 2: have come over in the first six and a bit
Speaker 2: months of this year. They are record numbers and I'm
Speaker 2: not prepared to continue with gimmicks that don't act as
Speaker 2: are deterrent.
Speaker 3: One of the things about labor that they're going to
Speaker 3: really struggle with. They really didn't reveal what they were
Speaker 3: going to do at all in any area of policy
Speaker 3: Claire because they didn't want to spook the electorate. But
Speaker 3: he doesn't have a particularly strong plan to deal with
Speaker 3: a small boats crisis, and he's going to have to
Speaker 3: come up with one, and even Tony Blair is in
Speaker 3: the Times this weekend saying if you don't control your borders,
Speaker 3: that's when prejudice flows. So he's having the minutes walked in.
Speaker 3: He's having Tony Blair, who it must be said, still
Speaker 3: holds the record for the biggest labor majority, saying you
Speaker 3: must stop these small boats or it will be your undoing.
Speaker 1: One of the biggest factors kiz Dama has to face
Speaker 1: now is the Gaza effect. Five independents, including Jeremy Corbyn,
Speaker 1: who campaigned hard on recognition of Palestine, took seats that
Speaker 1: Labor would otherwise have expected to win.
Speaker 3: It's a big problem and it's a problem around the world.
Speaker 3: Look at the primaries for the Democrats, where Joe Biden
Speaker 3: basically ran unopposed, but he suffered huge protest votes in
Speaker 3: places like Michigan with huge Muslim populations. Labor kind of
Speaker 3: saw this coming in Britain because they had huge protest
Speaker 3: votes in the council elections and a lot of this
Speaker 3: has been directed by a group called the Muslim Vote,
Speaker 3: and as we know, they are looking to replicate that
Speaker 3: here in Australia, targeting some ministers such as Education Minister
Speaker 3: Jason Clair, the Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke, and we
Speaker 3: know that through Dennis Shanahan and Sarah Eisen's reporting in
Speaker 3: The Australian last week that Anthony Albinizi is concerned about
Speaker 3: this group. So we may yet see that replicated here,
Speaker 3: but it is definitely a problem for cair Starmer.
Speaker 1: Coming up the firebrand conservative everyone's talking about and how
Speaker 1: he could reshape British Politicsustralian's deep in coverage of the
Speaker 1: other two orcast elections happening in coming months in the
Speaker 1: US and possibly here in Australia. You can be the
Speaker 1: smartest person in every room by joining our subscribers now
Speaker 1: at the Australian dot com dot a U and we'll
Speaker 1: be back after this break. One of the wildcuts in
Speaker 1: the UK election is Nigel Farage, a politician who's been
Speaker 1: around UK politics for decades, initially as an anti europe
Speaker 1: campaigner and now offering himself as an alternative voice to
Speaker 1: the Tories with a strident line on migrants. His party
Speaker 1: was the second most popular in more than one hundred
Speaker 1: seats and took a whopping fourteen percent of the national vote.
Speaker 1: It also won five seats of its own putting Farrage
Speaker 1: into Parliament for the first time.
Speaker 3: There was one political analyst and Breton who said, Nigel
Speaker 3: Farage will be happy he's finally entered Parliament. He'll just
Speaker 3: be sad that there's four other MP's going with him.
Speaker 3: He has a reputation for falling out with people that
Speaker 3: have joined his group. For example, when he was in
Speaker 3: UKIP and a couple of Tories defected to UKIP his
Speaker 3: original party where she was pushing the bricks of vote
Speaker 3: from he fell out with them. He's very much the
Speaker 3: star of his own show, but also he actually has
Speaker 3: to be an MP. And the thing about being an
Speaker 3: MP clayer, especially in Britain even more than so in Australia,
Speaker 3: it's very restrictive. He can't dominate question time. He only
Speaker 3: gets one question maybe a couple of months, and then
Speaker 3: there's so much work in MP has to do, especially
Speaker 3: in Britain, where people write in about their council bins
Speaker 3: and the bus stop nearby making too much noise and
Speaker 3: oh you know there's a problem with my toilet m
Speaker 3: sewerage like it is not going to be as glamorous
Speaker 3: as he thinks, and he may be wishing that he
Speaker 3: decided to go and do what he was originally going
Speaker 3: to do, which is and Stumper own the country for
Speaker 3: Donald Trump and go to all these gletsy events for
Speaker 3: the Republicans in America, rather than he's sucking in the
Speaker 3: cisode tain of Clacton.
Speaker 1: Nigel Farage was criticized during the campaign for being allegedly
Speaker 1: pro Russia. He's fired back about that speaking here to
Speaker 1: our colleagues at times radio.
Speaker 4: I've never said anything nice about Pootsin. I think what
Speaker 4: he's done in Ukraine is absolutely reprehensible at every level.
Speaker 4: Of course, all wars end in one of two ways,
Speaker 4: either annihilation or negotiation. I would have thought negotiation was
Speaker 4: rather important. I would have thought the West could satan Putin.
Speaker 4: You've got to give up the territory that you know
Speaker 4: thus far, and if you don't, then I'm afraid. You know,
Speaker 4: we are going to lay down some very very tough
Speaker 4: conditions and maybe NATO will have to expand.
Speaker 1: But Richard, he's now a force in the Parliament who,
Speaker 1: I think it's fair to say, is not likely to
Speaker 1: support huge amounts of weaponry being sent to Ukraine to
Speaker 1: prolong the war. Is that your rating of base and
Speaker 1: what does it mean for ukramee and the rest of
Speaker 1: the world.
Speaker 3: I think ultimately it won't matter because Labor has five years,
Speaker 3: it's a much longer term than we have in Australia
Speaker 3: and they have such a huge majority. But what it
Speaker 3: will mean is if say there are other events in
Speaker 3: NATO in the next coming years, how will the Tory
Speaker 3: Party react to how Nigel Farag thinks this will be
Speaker 3: the problem for the British Right. Do they welcome Nigel
Speaker 3: Farage back into the fold and try and get him
Speaker 3: into the Conservatives or do they try and push him
Speaker 3: out or hope that he blows himself up or gets bored.
Speaker 3: Labor has won the first past the post game, but
Speaker 3: it's on a very very shaky ground this majority. The
Speaker 3: Conservative Party is in a very very bad place, but
Speaker 3: it's not impossible to imagine them even getting back to
Speaker 3: a kind of a hung parliament standing, maybe not in
Speaker 3: the next term, but definitely in the term after. So
Speaker 3: that is how it will affect is how will the
Speaker 3: Conservators react to Nigel Farage and what role will he
Speaker 3: play in the reorganization of the British Right.
Speaker 1: Whichard focus on is the Australian's National chief of Staff.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us on the front and don't forget
Speaker 1: to subscribe at the Australian dot com dot au