Is Boris Johnson trying to provoke a culture war by appointing Tony Abbott?

The former Australian prime minister’s recruitment as a UK trade adviser is hard to explain in light of accusations of sexism, homophobia and climate-emergency scepticism, writes John Rentoul

This could be the PM’s attempt to rally voters at a time when the opinion polls are turning against him (Getty)

The Board of Trade is one of the oldest relics of the British constitution, set up by James I in 1622 as a temporary committee of the privy council, to try to do something about the trade recession of the time. For a long time, it was a government department. Harold Wilson became a cabinet minister at the age of 30 as president of the board in 1947, before his opponent Edward Heath merged it with the Ministry of Technology to form the Department of Trade and Industry in 1970.

That department has changed its name several times since, with its secretary of state also holding the title of President of the Board of Trade – characteristically, Michael Heseltine and Peter Mandelson were the only ones who actually used it.

When Theresa May split the Department for International Trade from what was now called the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the Board of Trade went with it, and the title of president passed to Liam Fox and then, when Boris Johnson became prime minister, to Liz Truss.

The board is now no more than an advisory committee to the international trade secretary, but even so, when it was revealed 10 days ago that Tony Abbott, the former prime minister of Australia, was to be appointed joint president of the board, it came as a jolt. Even without the charges against Abbott of sexism, homophobia and climate-emergency scepticism, it seemed odd to be appointing a foreigner to a post with such a grand and governmental history.

Yet the post had been offered, and accepted, as was confirmed by Scott Morrison, the current Australian prime minister and Abbott’s successor as leader of the (conservative) Liberal Party.

Entirely predictably, the uproar has been reverberating ever since. Abbott has been denounced by Labour MPs as a misogynist and a homophobe. Truss herself fought back, accusing Labour of hypocrisy because John McDonnell, the former shadow chancellor, once appeared to approvingly quote a call to lynch Esther McVey, the former Tory cabinet minister. It was a thin and unconvincing, although undeniably passionate, defence.

Even thinner and less convincing was health secretary Matt Hancock’s defence on Thursday, when the “misogynist and homophobe” charge against Abbott was put to him. “He is also an expert on trade,” Hancock said, in effect pleading guilty as charged on behalf of his client.

To be fair – and it is worth being fair even to failed Australian prime ministers – Abbott is an expert on trade. He was prime minister for only two years, but he negotiated Australian trade agreements with the US and Japan in that time. If he had simply been consulted as an adviser by the British government, there may not have been a fuss at all: it was the Ruritanian title that was the spark that started the fire.

So why did Truss do it, and why did Johnson agree to it? It may be, partly, another example of sectarian Brexit politics. As with Claire Fox, the former Brexit Party MEP given a peerage by Johnson despite her failure fully to repudiate her support for the IRA, the prime minister has shown a willingness to tolerate embarrassment for the sake of promoting Brexiteers. And Abbott supports the UK leaving the EU.

That desire to defy what Johnson and his coterie regard as the wet liberal Remainer establishment is what prompts the theory that Abbott’s appointment is a deliberate attempt to provoke a reaction that will strengthen the prime minister’s support among socially conservative Brexit voters. For them, it might be thought that a man with old-fashioned views, from a Commonwealth country, is just the sort of “expert” we need.

Is Johnson trying to fight a low-level Trumpian culture war – a culture skirmish, as James Kirkup called it – in order to rally his voters at a time when the opinion polls are turning against him?

I doubt if it is as calculated as that. These things are usually chaos and confusion rather than conspiracy. It looks as if the prime minister decided to confirm Abbott’s appointment yesterday mainly because he didn’t want to make yet another U-turn. But the “joint president” title, which is what initial reports suggested Abbott would be granted, was quietly downgraded to mere “adviser to” the Board of Trade.

If it’s a skirmish in a culture war, it is one that Johnson seems to be losing.