Albanese government clings to British defence despite Donald Trump's decision on AUKUS hanging in the balance
A 50-year treaty to underpin the three-nation security pact will be signed after Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Defence Minister Richard Marles meet their counterparts for talks in Sydney.
The AUKUS security partnership involves the US, UK and Australia, but the fresh treaty is only between London and Canberra.
In opening remarks with UK leaders, Marles said the two nations' relationship might be Australia's most important partnership.
'We are living at a time (when) the world is volatile, there is a great power contest,' he said on Friday.
UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy also spoke of the 'challenging' global circumstances, including the war in Ukraine and conflicts in the Middle East.
'We rely on each other in so many ways and obviously, combined, we are part of a system that gives us tremendous intelligence capability and military capability,' he said.
While negotiations over the defence agreement were flagged before US President Donald Trump took power, the document's inking shows the UK and Australia are strengthening ties in the face of American tariffs and the Pentagon's yet-to-be-completed AUKUS review.
The bilateral treaty will facilitate greater economic co-operation between the two nations by improving both countries' industrial capacity.
As part of the existing defence agreement, Australia will pay $5billion to support British industry to design and produce nuclear reactors to power the future AUKUS-class submarines.
Under the $368billion AUKUS submarine program, Australia is set to be sold least three Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines from the US in the early 2030s.
The new AUKUS-class nuclear submarines will be built in Adelaide and delivered in the 2040s.
But the planned sale of US-built boats has been up in the air since the Trump administration launched a review of the deal to examine whether it aligns with his 'America first' agenda.
Defence analysts believe a likely outcome of the US review will be a request for more money from Australia to support its submarine industrial base.
Australian Strategic Policy Institute senior analyst Alex Bristow said holding ministerial meetings every six months, rather than the traditional annual timeline, highlighted strengthened ties between the two nations.
'The tempo of it increasing, I think, is a signal that Britain is moving into an elite category,' he said.
The UK's Carrier Strike Group, led by the Royal Navy flagship HMS Prince of Wales, arrived in Darwin on Wednesday during Talisman Sabre multi-nation military exercises hosted by Australia.
It's the first UK carrier strike group to visit Australia since 1997.
The international task group includes five core ships, 24 jets and 17 helicopters, centred on the flagship aircraft carrier.
Marles and Wong will on Sunday join their UK counterparts in Darwin to observe the group in action.
UK High Commissioner Sarah MacIntosh said the strike group's arrival was a demonstration of commitment to the region and the strong relationship with Canberra.
'This is an anchor relationship in a contested world,' she said.
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'He's very reactive,' Brown said of Robinson. 'It's often just what comes into his head. He's very quick to believe his own myth. It takes probably a bunch of messages from people saying, 'Don't do it'. And finally he has to begrudgingly say: 'Oh, maybe it's not a good idea'. 'He'll just rush in, straight away, whatever feels right at the time. He just does not think. Which is why he falls in [to] prison all the time, because he's always saying stuff that he shouldn't.' Brown was with Robinson at some of the key moments early in his rise, including escorting him to what would be a highly lucrative first meeting with Steve Bannon, the former chief strategist to Donald Trump. Bannon thought he was ex-army, a bemused Robinson disclosed to her at the time. Brown left Robinson's side after a bruising falling out, but suspects that his enthusiasm for Epping dulled when he was alerted by his entourage to appeals from leading figures in the local protests for him to stay away. Robinson may appear to be a one-man band, marshalling his significant following in the UK and a trans-national far-right community that is particularly strong in the US thanks to Bannon and Elon Musk. This week, Robinson sent out an email to followers to raise £106,000 to fund an upcoming demonstration, according to one recipient. In truth, the 42-year-old sits at the centre of an ecosystem of long-term acolytes and more recent hangers-on, who are key to facilitating what even his harshest critics will admit is a successful campaign to put himself at the heart of national debate. When Robinson judicially reviewed his 'detention in solitary confinement and treatment' at HMP Woodhill, where he was jailed for repeating false claims about a 15-year-old Syrian refugee in defiance of a court injunction, the judge ruled against him on the grounds that it was for his protection and he had enjoyed '80 social visits, not including those from family members'. On leaving prison, Robinson told a friendly podcaster that he had planned from his cell a 'Uniting the Kingdom' demonstration in London to be held on 13 September, all with the help of regular communication with his lieutenants. Who then is Team Tommy? Brown, who at one point moved to Bedfordshire to work more closely with Robinson, stopped working with him seven years ago, but the core around him has remained remarkably stable for at least a decade, according to Joe Mulhall, director of research at Hope Not Hate. On leaving HMP Woodhill, Robinson had words of thanks on the steps of the prison for Ezra Levant, the Canadian owner of Rebel Media, a social media platform similar to the better known Breitbart, for helping his family while he was in jail. Nine years ago, he had started paying Robinson £200 a video for Rebel. The platform generates revenue through donations from viewers and crowdfunding campaigns. Brown, who was the helping hand with the camera at the start of that relationship, said Robinson had become a big earner for the businessman. 'Ezra Levant is very important, definitely kind of like the show runner, and it's fascinating seeing him still around,' she said. 'He is the one that goes down to the court cases with [former Sun journalist] Dan Wootton and spins the story to make sure that everyone knows that Tommy's actually the victim, guys. He is perpetuating the Tommy myth despite seeing him up close and personal. But it is a business to him.' While it was with Levant that Robinson did his first interview after leaving jail, the second was on a podcast called The Dozen hosted by Liam Tuffs, son of Peter Gillett, a registered sex offender who was said by Reggie Kray to be his 'adoptive son'. Tuffs, who runs a security firm and has described his father as an 'animal' and 'narcissist', has interviewed figures such as Laurence Fox (in a episode entitled 'British Culture is under Attack') but he has also featured Adam Kelwick, the imam at the Abdullah Quilliam mosque in Liverpool (an episode entitled 'Death Cult or Peaceful Religion? Muslim Leader Quizzed over Radical Islam'). 'He's a friend of Tommy that now and again would go on stage and compere for him,' said Brown of Tuffs, who is regarded as a calming influence on Robinson, who has been diagnosed with ADHD. 'I've watched him sidle his way in. He likes to tell people that he helps Tommy get sober, but I'm not sure if we can trust that Tommy is sober, to be honest with you.' It was Tufts and Guramit Singh, a former leading member of the English Defence League (EDL), who was with Robinson at the Hawksmoor restaurant on London's Air Street last month when they were asked to leave because staff 'felt uncomfortable serving him'. Singh, from Nottingham, was sentenced in 2013 to seven years and three months in jail for his role in a robbery during which a shop assistant was pinned the ground and made threats to slash his throat if he did not hand over cash. There is a further tranche of Robinson devotees at Urban Scoop, the so-called 'independent journalism' website to which Robinson is a consultant. It was set up by Adam Geary, better known as 'Nem', and one of Robinson's closest advisers since the rough and ready days of the EDL. Robinson today emphasises the peacefulness of the protests he organises and the relationship with the police that he has sought to build. But Brown said that those who crossed him were well aware of his ruthlessness. In his biography, Tommy, the Hope Not Hate founder, Nick Lowles, reported how Robinson failed to visit his cousin, Kev Carroll, a former leader of the EDL, for six months when he was on remand after he was caught wielding a machete while standing on the bonnet of a car. 'I'm 52 years old and I've got nothing to show for it,' Carroll later wrote. 'You give Tom everything and he just wants more and more until you have nothing left to give. And then he doesn't want to know you.' Lowles recalled how Robinson doorstepped him at his home alongside 'self-confessed bomb-maker' Peter Keeley to accuse him of paying people to 'make up information about him'. His behaviour towards a female reporter at the Independent, after she investigated his finances, compelled her to apply for an interim stalking order. What, then, keeps people by Robinson's side? 'A lot of these guys around him seem to have the same kind of modus operandi of 'protect the source' – because I guess they'll probably make money as well from association with him', said Brown. 'Many of them have their own little YouTube channels, with varying degrees of success.' There was a darkness to her experience with Robinson, she said. She remembered 'the dodgy guys that look and dress just like him' and the drink and drugs binges. Her memoirs, The Hate Club, are expected to chronicle some of the sleazier moments in her time with him when she self-publishes next month. Robinson has admitted to past heavy drug use while denying claims that he used donations to buy cocaine and pay for the services of sex workers. But he has a charisma that lures people into his circle, said Brown, who is married to Sascha Bailey, the son of the photographer David Bailey. 'It's like being around Peter Pan or something,' she said. 'You just have to keep up the myth. You're either in or out. He wines and dines them all, you know. 'Come out. We'll go for drinks'. He schmoozes people, and he knows what they want. That's something I noticed when we were working together – he knows what people want to hear.'
