Anthony Albanese shuts down meeting with Nigel Farage, does not want to see the 'rise’ of populist parties

Anthony Albanese says he won’t meet with Nigel Farage and said he does not want to see the rise of parties like Britain’s populist right party, Reform.

Mr Albanese spent Friday headlining a global progressives conference in central London alongside his ‘Three Eyes’ Prime Ministerial counterparts, Keir Starmer of the UK and Mark Carney of Canada.

The trio also spoke alongside Iceland’s Prime Minister about how to combat the rise of the populist right, which is surging in support across Europe.

Current polling puts Mr Farage within a whisker of forming majority government, partly due to anxieties about immigration and the flow from across the English Channel of small boats carrying migrants who claim asylum in the UK.

“I don’t want to see the rise of populist organisations such as that,” Mr Albanese told reporters during a press conference at Stoke Lodge, the official residence of Australia’s High Commissioner to the UK, Stephen Smith.

“I met with the mainstream opposition party here.

“Parties of governance have to come up with solutions, not seek to divide people.”

Asked if he had ever met Mr Farage, Mr Albanese said: “No.”

When pressed by The Nightly if he would seek a meeting with the populist leader given Reform’s electoral viability, Mr Albanese said he would not.

“I have no plans to meet Mr Farage,” the Prime Minister said.

Mr Albanese’s London schedule was dominated by meetings with like-minded leaders, but he held one meeting with a Conservative — the leader of the UK’s opposition Kemi Badenoch.

When pressed by The Nightly, about whether this was a good strategy given the failure to prepare for Donald Trump’s election in the United States’ caught Australia’s political establishment unawares, he said: “I’ve given you the answer, I’ve met the Prime Minister and the leader of the opposition.”

Australian officials had to seek Mr Trump’s mobile via golfing giant Greg Norman during the President’s first Administration.

And Australia’s Ambassador to the United States Kevin Rudd waited until the morning after Mr Trump’s re-election last November to wipe social media posts he had published that were critical of the notoriously vindictive President.

In the UK, Mr Farage’s dominance in the polls is such that UK Labour and Sir Keir has begun treating the Reform leader as the true opposition leader over Ms Badenoch.

“We’re going to face a very different election next time to any of the elections we’ve fought in the United Kingdom for a very, very long time,” Sir Keir said.

“That’s certainly why I want this to be out as an open fight now, between Labour and Reform.

“The choice before the electorate here at the next election is not going to be the traditional Labour versus Conservative.

“It’s why I’ve said the Conservative party is dead. Centre-right parties in many European countries have withered on the vine.

“And the same is happening in this country. And it actually becomes bigger than Labour.

“There’s a battle for the soul of this country now as to what sort of country do we want to be because that toxic divide, that decline with Reform, it’s built on a sense of grievance, grievance politics.”

Trump heralds a new era

But Sir Keir also said that countries had to accept that the populist economist policies being pursued by President Donald Trump were here to stay.

On Friday, Mr Trump threatened a 100 per cent tariff beginning October 1 on pharmaceuticals unless the company has a plant in the United States.

If imposed, it would add to the 10 per cent on tariffs on imports form Australia as well 50 per cent on steel, setting up yet another point of tension in the relationship ahead of Mr Albanese’s October 20 meeting.

Asked if there was anything he could learn from the approach of Sir Keir, who has forged a friendship with Mr Trump, compared to Mr Albanese’s one and only fleeting selfie encounter, the Prime Minister said: “I think that you just deal with these issues in a straightforward manner.”

But Sir Keir said America’s allies had to accept tariffs were “here to stay.”

“You can have your view on tariffs, you may think they’re good, bad or indifferent,” he said.

“But the fact is they’re here. President Trump believes in them, uses them, and we have to understand that.”

“It’s a profound belief that he has about the way he wants his economy to be reshaped.

Sir Keir said this meant being clearer at home about domestic government support for industries compared to the free market.

Mr Albanese met one-on-one with Mr Carney, Sir Keir and Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.

On Saturday he heads to Balmoral to meet King Charles III, becoming the first Australian Prime Minister since Paul Keating to meet the monarch at their Scottish castle.

He said it was a privilege and that he was looking forward to the meeting, and had shelved his ambitions for a Republic.