Why Tony Abbott is a controversial choice for UK trade role

The former Australian PM is a keen Brexiteer - but comes with political baggage

Ex-Australian PM Tony Abbott
(Image credit: Suhaimi Abdullah/Getty Images)

The government has not yet confirmed that Tony Abbott, the former prime minister of Australia, has been hired as a post-Brexit UK trade envoy, but already he is stirring up a furious reaction.

The decision to appoint the “right-wing Brexiteer” has been “blasted by critics”, reports the Daily Mail, which says he will travel to London next week.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Holden Frith is The Week’s digital director. He also makes regular appearances on “The Week Unwrapped”, speaking about subjects as diverse as vaccine development and bionic bomb-sniffing locusts. He joined The Week in 2013, spending five years editing the magazine’s website. Before that, he was deputy digital editor at The Sunday Times. He has also been TheTimes.co.uk’s technology editor and the launch editor of Wired magazine’s UK website. Holden has worked in journalism for nearly two decades, having started his professional career while completing an English literature degree at Cambridge University. He followed that with a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University in Chicago. A keen photographer, he also writes travel features whenever he gets the chance.