Before the year is out, we are likely to see important changes in the leadership of at least one, if not both, of Australia’s AUKUS partners.

Most attention will, naturally, focus on the United States, where the prospect of a second Trump presidency has moved from the implausible, through the distinctly possible, and is now knocking on the door of the probable. The latest RealClearPolitics average of opinion polls has Trump leading Biden nationally by 3.8 per cent. Every major poll taken since the Iowa caucuses has Trump ahead, as do the betting markets.

Labour prime minister in waiting Keir Starmer. Credit: Carl Court/Getty Images

Nevertheless, there is a long way to go until November 5. While a second Trump administration – so unthinkable to many people barely six months ago – is now beginning to seem likely, it is still too soon to predict that it will happen.

In the United Kingdom, however, there is little doubt about the outcome of the election later this year. Labour having led the Conservative government by about 20 points for more than a year, two opinion polls published last week had its lead stretching to 25 and 27 points respectively. Incredibly, in the past few days there has been serious speculation about the possibility of yet another Tory leadership change. To lose two prime ministers in the space of seven weeks was bad enough, but to lose three in less than 18 months would have left even Lady Bracknell lost for words.

I don’t think the Tories will be mad enough to dump Rishi Sunak, but I do expect he will lead them to electoral slaughter. I’ve been in London lately, and have not spoken to a single person – including some very senior Tories – who thinks otherwise.

This raises the question of what a UK Labour government will mean for Australia. Last Wednesday, at an address to the London think tank Council on Geostrategy, the Labour shadow foreign minister for Asia and the Pacific, Catherine West, addressed the issue. West, Sydney-born and educated, is not a member of shadow cabinet but, because of both her background and portfolio, she would be Australia’s most important contact in an incoming Labour government.

First, a UK Labour government would pose no threat to AUKUS. It will remain a fixture. The attraction of AUKUS to Labour probably lies more in the employment opportunities it will create in the economically disadvantaged north of England than in any grand strategic vision.

Second, there will be no walking back from Britain’s deeper engagement in its trading relationships in the Indo-Pacific. The Free Trade Agreement with Australia, signed by former trade minister Dan Tehan in December 2021, came into force last year. Nor will a Labour government walk away from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, to which the UK also recently acceded.