As Britons went to the polls, ex-patriate votes to elect a new government were cast in Australia, waiting to be counted.
Thousands of migrant Britons were door-knocked, interviewed and persuaded to vote by proxy, without hearing statements of policy from leaders. They cast their votes by choosing neighbours or friends "at home" to vote for them, or had proxies arranged by Labour or Conservative offices. About 400,000 who have been here for less than 20 years are eligible to vote, but only a fraction have done so.
Alastair Kinloch, chairman of the Australian branch of Conservatives Abroad,(who has no vote because he settled here more than 20 years ago) says: ‘From the surveys we did, and the people we have spoken to, we are very happy with the campaign we ran to get John Major re-elected.’
His team mounted a direct mail campaign with Union Jacks on the envelopes and a pamphlet warning that "all Brits" who cherished symbols were under threat if Tony Blair came to power.
Never before in any British election had the Australian political influence been so significant. Not because of any real effect the ex-patriate votes will have, but from the enthusiastic embracing of Australian political tactics by both Labour and the Conservatives. British Labour had party executives in Australia studying the 1993 election which Australian Labor won, and then the 1996 election which the Liberal Coalition won in a landslide. Tony Blair flew out to huddle with former Prime Minister Keating; (and while he was here won the vote of media magnate Rupert Murdoch). John Prescott, British Labour deputy leader and chief election strategist, made several visits to Australia to quiz ALP officials.
And - says Conservatives Abroad’s Kinloch - to "spy" on the Liberals’ office in Canberra to find out how it achieved such a dramatic turn-around in the last election.
Both British Labour and Conservatives Abroad had access to census data showing the concentration of British migrants in various electoral districts, in some seats the concentration of British-born voters as high as 40 percent. Market research revealed to CA that British migrants were less concerned with taxation threats in the UK or the state of the economy than they were about dangers to symbols and institutions of the Britain they knew - the Union Jack, the pound and a single parliament.
Alastair Kinloch said: ‘They also had a distrust of political promises. They had experienced deceptiveness and cynicism here. We all knew before the 1993 election that much of what Paul Keating promised could never be achieved. But he got away with it. Even his "L-A-W law" legislation to give tax cuts was revoked as soon as he got back. British voters here told us they had become cynical about politicians’ promises; they saw no reason to believe the same backsliding wouldn’t happen in England if Tony Blair gets in.
‘Tony Blair has a nice smile. But he has a budget scheduled for eight weeks after the election. The concern here is that all the nasties we have experienced in Australia will then arrive in the UK, because they have learned from Keating. Taxes will go up; the economy which is now thriving will be mis-managed; the unions will become more influential.’
British ex-patriate voters stressed to the door-knockers that their prime concern was the deterioration of the Britain they knew and loved; that separate assemblies in Wales and Scotland would start the United Kingdom on "a slippery slide" and lead to its break-up. They were worried about Tony Blair’s capacity for rational judgment and his role in international diplomacy.
‘British Labour will say and do anything to win government, but the price that will be paid should they win will be crippling. Australia really suffered under 13 years of Labor: high unemployment, high taxes, a high budget deficit, high interest rates, high overseas debt, a high level of small business bankruptcies and pandering to the unions.
‘If Labour wins government in Britain, British-born people here are saying to me that the Britain they knew and respected would disappear.’
The Australian Labor Party has worked equally as hard to sway ex-patriates to Blair. British Labour Party branches have been established in Australia. ALP Opposition Leader, Kim Beazley, campaigned in his newsletter for a huge effort in October. And a British ALP Society of ex-patriate Australian Labor supporters went from door to door urging proxies to be cast for Labour.
Several former ex-ministerial staffers from the Keating administration have gone to Britain to advise British Labour, one young ALP supporter from Queensland so keen to help elect Tony Blair he flew to Britain to work in his office. Unfortunately he made the mistake of being too candid with immigration officials at Heathrow when he used the word "work". Asked for a work permit, he admitted he had none. He was sent back on the next plane to Brisbane.
