‘Whitehall was horrified by Brexit’: an interview with Australia’s departing high commissioner

When Britain voted for Brexit, Tony Abbott, the former prime minister of Australia, had an idea. How about striking a new free trade deal between Australia and the UK to celebrate escaping the statism and bureaucracy of Brussels? The deal needed to be only one page long, he argued, because the two countries were already so similar. ‘If a car is fit to be sold in Britain, it’s fit to be sold in Australia,’ he said. ‘If a doctor is fit to practise in Australia, he or she is fit to practise in the UK.’

In the end, things proved more complicated. An agreement was eventually signed last December, but it ran to 430 pages. Free trade was to be phased in very slowly – over 15 years in all – on the grounds that British farmers needed time to adjust. George Brandis, Australia’s high commissioner in London, was key to getting the deal over the line.