“If Donald Trump returns to the Oval Office, only a tealeaf reader would dare predict his attitude to the tripartite AUKUS caucus,” writes The Gadfly columnist ROBERT MACKLIN.

What happens when the new UK Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer realises that the ridiculous anti-Chinese AUKUS deal is irrelevant to Britain’s defence structure and harmful to its economy? 

Will AUKUS become AUS, or will we reject the whole silly shebang and give President Macron a call.

After all, in 1968 Britain’s Labour PM Harold Wilson withdrew all defence commitments “East of Suez”. 

In 1983 the Conservative Party’s Margaret Thatcher underlined it by abandoning Hong Kong. In 1997, Labour’s Tony Blair oversaw the return of the colony to China. By then it had become a British canon until the nitwit Boris Johnston signed the deal courtesy of our own oddball, Scott Morrison. 

One of Sir Keir’s first acts when he moved to 10 Downing Street, was to reassure Xi Jinping that Britain’s “One China” policy was unchanged. 

No surprises there. Britain is in fierce economic pain. He might like to resuscitate its “special relationship” with the US, but not at the cost of retaining – and expanding – every element of Chinese trade he can muster. 

In this endeavour, the US is a competitor, as we learned to our cost when China barred some of our goods and the US leapt in to replace us. 

Britain’s AUKUS commitment is to supply certain technology and receive some from the US. They might get a guernsey in producing some parts, but the submarines will essentially be American. 

The AUKUS spin-off is small beer compared with the $A168 billion annual Britain-China trade. Moreover, the terms of the AUKUS deal allow the Brits to depart without paying a cent in compo (though it would cost us an arm and a leg to do likewise).

No doubt Sir Keir watched the two US presidential conventions in Milwaukee and Chicago. While politically his own party is closer to the Democrats than the Republicans, his decision on AUKUS might well depend on the election result.

If Donald Trump returns to the Oval Office, only a tealeaf reader would dare predict his attitude to the tripartite AUKUS caucus. I suspect he’d rather keep all the subs in American hands, though he might see it as a chip to play in the game of diplomacy with his “beautiful letter” pen pal Xi Jinping. 

If Trump’s generals sell him the line that they’ve sucked Australia into becoming an American base that could give him pause. More likely he’ll see it as a Joe Biden initiative, and that alone could kill it. 

The Democratic Convention was also tricky. A presidential Kamala Harris is not about to publicly disown the deal signed by her beloved predecessor. 

In fact, she sounded much more bellicose than Trump on the night as she recommitted the US to the Ukraine war and showed her contempt for the autocrats such as Putin, Kim Jong Un and Xi Jinping. 

What’s more, her patron Nancy Pelosi broke a lifelong friendship with Joe to give Kamala her big chance, and recently led a delegation to Taiwan to give the finger to Xi. 

But once in the Oval Office, Kamala will need to be a new version of herself, and going to war with China is not on her game plan.

The hard heads around Sir Keir will put their case. On the one hand the British defence contractors will be grasping for the dollars (and the technology) that might flow their way; on the other, the economists will be telling him the truth about China’s goodwill gift to the Exchequer’s bottom line, and that Morrison only included the Brits for show in any case. 

It’s just possible that Paul Keating, Gareth Evans and a certain former Liberal PM might also weigh in and could even tip the scales.

Wouldn’t that be fun? Albo might have to take a rare big decision.

robert@robertmacklin.com