Anyone who has kept half an eye on Australian politics in the last decade would have spotted something eerily familiar on UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s podium as he announced a hardline new policy regarding asylum seekers attempting to enter the UK via boat.
“Stop the Boats” is a phrase that has dominated Australian political discourse since Tony Abbott was opposition leader. So it’s worth noting the recent addition to Sunak’s office preceding their adoption of it.
We don’t know for sure if Australian campaign strategist Isaac Levido is the reason for this hardline stance, but a look at his history and influence makes it hard to believe any messaging would come out of Conservative headquarters without his approval.
Levido has been in and around UK conservative politics for years now. He was ditched by then-PM Liz Truss in October last year, which must have been a rough couple of hours. Once Truss’ impressively catastrophe-dense 45 days as PM was done and Sunak had taken over the office, MP Nadhim Zahawi invited Levido back.
Levido now runs his own consultancy firm called Fleetwood Strategy, but he is a protege of political dark arts master Lynton Crosby. Levido has said he received his “greatest training” while under Crosby during David Cameron’s 2015 election campaign. The impact on Australian politics of lobbyist and political consultancy firm Crosby Textor (now known as C|T Group) goes back to at least 2001, when, with Crosby as campaign director and Mark Textor as pollster, the Liberals rode the panic over the Tampa saga and the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks to an unlikely victory.
But it’s in UK conservative politics that C|T and its proteges have had their most consistent run of success in recent years.
Levido was deputy director of the Liberal Party during Scott Morrison’s “miracle” election win in 2019, before he was poached by the UK Conservatives to lead their team, becoming director of politics and campaigning for then-prime minister Boris Johnson.
Johnson had relied on Crosby for years, both as London mayor and a member of Parliament. At Conservative Campaign Headquarters, everyone — including Dominic Cummings, fellow dark arts practitioner and then-chief adviser to Johnson — reportedly deferred to Levido. And Levido wasn’t the only C|T associated member of Morrison’s team that Johnson eagerly snapped up.
Along with pollster Michael Brooks, New Zealand “digital gurus” Sean Topham and Ben Guerin — who had worked at CT subsidiary CTF Partners and were famous for, among other things, the sudden introduction of boomer memes to mainstream political campaigning — were hired by the Tories soon after Levido. See below for the result:
Love Actually star Hugh Grant noted at the time that the scene differs from the movie it’s parodying in one notable way — the card about “telling the truth” was missing.
Similarly, as the polls neared their close in December 2019, the official Conservatives account tweeted an image: “Get Brexit Done”. The accompanying text read “Make no mistake”. The approach of “people are talking about our messaging because it’s garbage, but they’re still talking about it” apparently worked. The clarity of “Get Brexit Done” cut through against muddled Labour communication on the issue, and the Tories had their biggest win this side of Margaret Thatcher.
This is when profiles of Levido started to appear, crediting him with orchestrating the victory. Indeed, it was reported that, as news of various Labour heartland seats being wiped out came through Tory headquarters, the assembled staffers belted out a chorus of “oh, Isaac Levido” to the tune of “Seven Nation Army”.
Unsurprisingly, as the COVID-19 crisis went through the gears Levido was brought back. He is credited with the early lockdown messaging of “Stay At Home, Protect The NHS, Save Lives”.
After Levido’s most recent return, preparation for the next election began. The Tories have moved from desperation — Labour is heavily favoured in recent polling, following the Johnson-to-Truss-to-Sunak clown show — to quiet hope after Sunak’s recent Brexit success in Northern Ireland.
Last week, Levido and Conservative Party chairman Greg Hands led an “away day” for MPs, setting out strategies for what is still an unlikely victory. The adoption of three words that came to sum up everything cruel, reductive and shameful in Australian politics since the time of Howard appears to be the first step.
