London: The Australian wine flowed freely in London on Monday night when Jay Weatherill marked his first official day as the nation’s new high commissioner to the United Kingdom.
The commission staff threw open the doors to Australia House, their imposing headquarters on The Strand, and welcomed politicians, diplomats, business chiefs and expatriate Australians to celebrate the national day.
Weatherill, a Labor insider and former South Australian premier, was given an effusive welcome. But he arrives in London at a fraught time for Britain and Australia, two countries that talk often about the strength of their relationship, and he could be in for a wild ride.
Both countries are caught in an American tornado, as US President Donald Trump upends the old world order, and will count on each other to help deal with the turbulence. Weatherill has to bring the allies even closer together.
This sounds easy, judging by the mood on Monday night. Every speech highlighted the rivalry between colonist and colony in a way that few other countries laugh about as much.
Seema Malhotra, the parliamentary under-secretary for the Foreign Office, quipped that the UK had given Australia cricket and almost lived to regret it. Chris Bryant, the trade minister, said he no longer cared about rugby now that Australia was so good at it.
The audience laughed beneath the extravagant marble decorations of the Exhibition Hall of Australia House, famously used as the setting for Gringotts Wizarding Bank in the Harry Potter movies. Spotted in the crowd were a handful of British ministers and Sir Clive Alderton, the private secretary to King Charles III.
Weatherill seems ideally qualified to bridge any divide between the two countries. His mother left an office job in Adelaide at the end of the 1950s for a holiday in Europe. His father, born into poverty in northern England and hoping for a better life elsewhere, met her on the ship that carried them both to Australia in 1960. They fell in love on board to the music of Frank Sinatra, Weatherill told the crowd.
More to the point, Weatherill proved to be an adept political leader when holding power in the hung parliament in South Australia after the state election of 2014. He has a talent for conveying calm. (Also in the audience on Monday, incidentally, was Steven Marshall, the state Liberal leader who lost that 2014 election. Marshall defeated Weatherill at the next one, in 2018. They still get along.)
Weatherill is also trusted by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong. (He dated Wong when they were young).
Nobody mentioned Trump in the speeches on Monday night, but everybody knows the code words for the era he has unleashed. Bryant talked of a troubled world, while Malhotra spoke about the need for a rules-based order in a world that is fragmented and unstable.
Weatherill talked about the strength of British and Australian democracies.
“Our collective commitment to unity, respect and pride in our Australian identity matters more than ever in a world that is less certain and more polarised,” he said. “I think this is a really important time for us to reflect on our shared values and our shared history as we all try and make sense together of this uncertain world.”
Albanese is so close to UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer that the two leaders can talk directly when they wish, with no need for diplomats to smooth the way.
When Starmer wanted to send a centrist message to the divided Labour faithful at the UK party’s annual conference in Liverpool last year, he arranged a keynote speech for Albanese. The address, controversial in Australia because it was so overtly political, reminded Labour MPs to keep calm, hold the middle ground and stick with their leader.
Starmer and his wife, Victoria, had Albanese for dinner at No. 10 Downing Street last September with his partner – now wife – Jodie Haydon. They were joined by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and his wife, Diana. Albanese brought a four-pack of beer, signalling the easy-going unity of the centre-left leaders.
The challenges for Weatherill are about what is happening outside, not within, the Australian relationship with Britain.
First is the pressure from Trump. It is barely a week since he threatened tariffs of 10 per cent, rising to 25 per cent, on eight NATO allies because they disagreed with him on his takeover plan for Greenland. He retreated, but not before every American ally got the message. The UK and Australia, like other allies, are on notice to expect further threats at any moment.
The key task for the UK and Australia, along with other liberal democracies, is to work together and hold their collective nerve the next time Trump goes on the attack. This is the approach that helped the UK and its European allies last week over Greenland. Carney argued for this unity from all middle powers in his address to the World Economic Forum in Davos – the speech that seems to have infuriated Trump.
The second challenge is to make AUKUS a reality. As a South Australian, the new high commissioner has skin in the game. His home state needs to see faster progress on setting up the facilities and hiring the workers to construct the country’s next submarine fleet, and this means relying on two British companies: BAE for the vessels and Rolls-Royce for the nuclear power plants.
Australia and the UK are equally troubled on AUKUS because neither country has a practical plan B. Australia will be more vulnerable to China without a new fleet, while the UK will be totally exposed to Russia. Both need Trump, and later US presidents, to back the pact. The US support is meaningless, however, if the British and the Australians cannot build the new vessels fast enough.
The third challenge is dealing with the turmoil of British politics. Starmer is unpopular with voters, mocked by the media and derided within his own party. His chief opponent, Nigel Farage of Reform UK, appeals to disgruntled voters with a rallying cry borrowed from Trump.
Weatherill has to navigate a Labour government in Westminster that is cracking under the pressure from Farage and struggling to set a direction under Starmer.
Rivals are parading in the Labour caucus, and the media, in the hope they will replace Starmer when the spill comes – and that means nobody at Australia House can be sure who will stand and who will fall.
In a sense, Weatherill will be trying to bring two governments closer together while one of them tears itself apart.
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David Crowe is Europe correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via X or email.