Ley’s leadership is in mortal danger but so is Littleproud’s

David Littleproud effectively just announced the death of the Coalition unless Sussan Ley’s enemies topple her.

The remarkable attack underscores how much pressure the Nationals’ leader is under as Australia’s century-old conservative political alliance crumbles.

The Queenslander said on Thursday morning that he didn’t want to “speculate about what could … happen” if the Liberal leadership changed hands, but he knew one thing for certain: “We cannot be part of a shadow ministry under Sussan Ley.”

For all the talk about Ley’s weak leadership since the election, Littleproud’s tenuous grip on power has flown under the radar.v

Littleproud has lost two seats due to the defections of Jacinta Nampijinpa Price to the Liberals and Barnaby Joyce to One Nation, where he now threatens to cannibalise the Nationals’ vote. So now the current leader of the Nationals appears to hold no more internal power than agenda-setting right-wing senator Matt Canavan.

Understand: Liberals hate nothing more than being told how to act by their regional partners, let alone when it comes to the question of who should lead them.

The business model adopted by both Littleproud and Ley involves concealing their lack of authority by deferring to their party rooms and thus, both often end up being guided by the wishes of their right flank.

If this split led to the election as leader of Canavan, more capable of taking on Joyce, it would not be a shock.

It’s against this backdrop that the wild events of the past few days must be viewed.

Littleproud couldn’t get his party to a position on Labor’s rushed hate speech laws and says he was left with no choice but to vote against a flawed bill that sparked free speech concerns from the Greens, civil liberties groups and conservatives such as Canavan.

Ley should never have accepted the resignation letters from frontbenchers Bridget McKenzie and company, Littleproud now argues, because the shadow cabinet never really agreed to a position.

This is contradicted by McKenzie’s resignation letter to Ley, which refers to a “decision taken” by the shadow cabinet to support Labor’s watered-down laws.

Whether Ley should have accepted the resignations or shown leniency given the unique circumstances of the emergency parliamentary session will be debated for years.

Putting aside the procedural minutiae, a view among some MPs is that this kind of split – which looks irredeemable right now – could only reach this point under the current Coalition leadership.

Littleproud is compelled to go along with Canavan and other Nationals-first MPs who privately believe the conservative rural party will be better off alone without their Liberal colleagues. And Ley lacks the heft to keep the Nationals in the tent.

In all likelihood, this split will be much longer than the brief eight-day divorce after the election. Moderate Liberals in particular hold out some hope that a Liberal-only opposition will allow the party to reconnect with city-based voters.

There’s no guarantee the Nationals survive this in the long run.

Formed out of the Country Party in 1920, the Nationals have survived over generations when agrarian sister parties in the US, Canada and Europe died out.

As journalist Paul Kelly wrote in his book The End of Certainty, “the entire reputation of the great National Party leaders was based upon their ability to win through the Coalition an influence beyond their numbers.”

McKenzie and Cadell, among others, got their jobs by being second on joint Liberal-National tickets. And with One Nation rapidly closing the gap on the Coalition, it’s not even clear whether the joint Coalition will easily secure second senators in some states.

The absurd games of the past few days may amount to shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic as conservative politics in Australia endures a painful transformation.

Ley and Littleproud do not get along. The first split this term was driven by Littleproud in a week when Ley’s mother died.

The Liberal leader was directly attacked by Littleproud on Thursday morning, and key right-wingers such as Jonno Duniam, Michaelia Cash and James Paterson are fully backing her actions.

But her rash calls to bring parliament back early lit the touch paper for this week’s bonfire.

Liberals might rally around Ley during this moment of crisis, but even moderate Liberals admit the death of the Coalition, an exceptionally successful arrangement that turned into the natural party of government in Australia for many years, will probably lead to Ley’s own political downfall.

MPs largely agree that Ley’s leadership is deeply wounded, and is most likely to be rolled at some stage. But how the next few weeks play out is hard to predict.

Angus Taylor is in Europe, and has spent this week calling colleagues to test the mood. There is no appetite to make any moves before parliament is back in February. Another leadership candidate, Andrew Hastie, was damaged in the hate speech debate. Ley could buy time by offering frontbench positions vacated by the Nationals, and so could stay as leader for months in a weakened state.

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