Australia’s Labor government was returned to office at last Saturday’s federal election in a landslide win.

Labor now holds 90 seats in the House of Representatives to the opposition’s 40, inflicting a devastating defeat on the conservatives. The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, a keen admirer of Donald Trump, lost his seat.

The conservative opposition in Australia has now been reduced to political irrelevancy in its present form, and – consumed by bitter infighting and recriminations – is destined to disappear as a major political force in the next few years.

Earlier last week the centrist Liberal party in Canada won a federal election, defeating the Conservative party, which had been 25 points ahead in the polls earlier in the year. The Canadian Conservative party leader, Pierre Poilievre – once touted as “Canada’s Donald Trump” – also lost his seat.

Last Thursday, in UK local council elections, the British Conservative party suffered a catastrophic defeat at the hands of Nigel Farage’s populist Reform party – losing control of a raft of local councils and mayoralties.

Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, is an enthusiastic fan of Donald Trump. She once praised him for being “a force for good in the world” and demanded that the Labour Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary apologise to Trump for daring to have criticised him.

Badenoch is certain to face a leadership challenge in the near future and will be deposed as the conservative leader. The UK Conservative party, just like the conservative coalition in Australia, is destined for political oblivion. So dire is the party’s predicament that Robert Jenrick, Badenoch’s likely replacement as leader, recently called for it to form a coalition with the Reform party.

These three election results make clear that conservative parties in the West that seek to imitate Trump derive no benefit from doing so – and that mimicking Trump only hastens their imminent political demise.

It is true that Canada is a special case. Trump’s absurd threat to make Canada America’s “51st state” – a ham-fisted attack on Canadian sovereignty – together with his recent imposition of crippling tariffs made a Liberal election victory virtually inevitable. Canadians have always been particularly sensitive to threats of domination from America.

It is also true that Trump’s misguided tariff policy – that threatened the globalist economic order, until the global financial system swiftly compelled him to reverse it – caused his popularity within almost all Western nations, such as it was, to decline overnight.

Why then have conservative leaders in the West nevertheless continued to flirt with Trumpism despite the negative electoral consequences for them?

Conservative leaders clearly believe that by........

© RT.com