{"id":23430,"date":"2020-08-28T19:05:48","date_gmt":"2020-08-28T18:05:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=23430"},"modified":"2020-08-28T19:05:48","modified_gmt":"2020-08-28T18:05:48","slug":"when-boris-met-tony","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=23430","title":{"rendered":"When Boris met Tony\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

In what smacks of another act of desperation PM Boris Johnson is preparing to appoint discredited former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott as joint president of the re-launched Board of Trade, (first created in 1622 \u00e2\u20ac\u015bto protect merchants\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 complaints and protect the national interests\u00e2\u20ac\u0165).<\/p>\n

Johnson wants Abbott to \u00e2\u20ac\u0098bang the drum\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 and act as \u00e2\u20ac\u0098a catalyst\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 for international trade negotiations.<\/p>\n

The gaffe prone former Aussie PM, famous for his \u00c2\u00a0cringe-worthy comments (read \u00c2\u00a0here<\/a>) \u00c2\u00a0will be \u00e2\u20ac\u0098joint president\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 together with International Trade Secretary Liz Truss \u00e2\u20ac\u201c undoubtedly a move designed to elbow out Ms Truss who has failed to deliver much in the way of trade deals \u00e2\u20ac\u201c especially the much vaunted US trade deal.<\/p>\n

She recently got involved in a row over Stilton cheese in a simple \u00e2\u20ac\u0098roll over\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 from the EU-Japan trade deal after the Japanese insisted the UK could not expect to be as good a deal as the EU deal.<\/p>\n

Weird advice<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Abbott is seen as a Brextremist, who has favoured no deal from the\u00c2\u00a0outset.\u00c2\u00a0He has been given to handing out weird advice on Brexit including ignoring favoured nation status, and hoping that the EU will reciprocate with an offer from the UK of no\u00c2\u00a0tariffs on EU goods.<\/p>\n

Last year Abbott, who was ousted as PM by his own party and dumped by his own constituents in the Aussie general election, wrote a pro-Brexit article in the Spectator<\/a> based on his experience as Australian\u00c2\u00a0PM and their trading relationships with the EU \u00e2\u20ac\u201c which is mostly based on agriculture and selling coal, gold and oil seeds to the EU – all involving ships being 25 days at sea.<\/p>\n

According to one senior Aussie trade union official who Unite has a good working relationship with, Abbott is loathed even by his own Liberal Party, and on his watch the Australian automotive industry closed. Our source went onto say, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bHe has no negotiating skills to speak of, is a complete novice on world trade as well as being a climate change denier and a misogynist.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

Labour\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s shadow secretary of state for international trade, Emily Thornberry responded to the news saying, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bAny way you look at it, this is an absolutely staggering appointment. On a personal level, it is shameful that Boris Johnson thinks this offensive, aggressive, leering, gaffe-prone misogynist is the right person to represent our country overseas.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bAnd on a professional level, this is someone with no hands-on experience of negotiating trade agreements, who denies the climate change that we believe should be at the heart of our trade policy, and who clearly has no concept of the importance of Britain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s trade with the EU.\u00c2\u00a0It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s yet more breath taking incompetence from a government that has turned it into an art-form.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

Another bad Boris blunder?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

And as Emily Thornberry refers to Abbott\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s views on climate change it could prove to be that Johnson may well have blundered into another badly thought through decision.<\/p>\n

In 2021 the UK is hosting the COP26 Climate Conference in Glasgow. Hiring a man who called climate change \u00e2\u20ac\u015babsolute crap\u00e2\u20ac\u0165, likened climate action to \u00e2\u20ac\u015bkilling goats to appease volcano gods\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 and repealed Australia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s carbon price, looks like another appalling decision.<\/p>\n

As my union comrade down under told me, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bAbbott should fit right into Johnson and Cummings\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Britain.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure it won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t take us long to see just how right that view is.<\/p>\n

By Tony Burke, Unite assistant general secretary \u00c2\u00a0@TonyBurke2010 <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The gaffe prone former Aussie PM, famous for his \u00c2\u00a0cringe-worthy comments (read \u00c2\u00a0here) \u00c2\u00a0will be \u00e2\u20ac\u0098joint president\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 together with International Trade Secretary Liz Truss \u00e2\u20ac\u201c undoubtedly a move designed to elbow out Ms Truss who has failed to deliver much in the way of trade deals \u00e2\u20ac\u201c especially the much vaunted US trade deal.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23434,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22],"tags":[1205,158,610],"wps_subtitle":"When one \u00e2\u20ac\u0098desperate\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 PM appoints a \u00e2\u20ac\u0098gaffe-prone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 \u00e2\u20ac\u0098misogynist\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 ex-PM to preside over the \u00e2\u20ac\u0098new\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Board of Trade, the weird and unusual just got weirder, says Unite AGS Tony Burke","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23430"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23430"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23438,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23430\/revisions\/23438"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}