There’s only one reason a Liberal-One Nation deal makes sense. This is it

For those watching politics at the moment, none of it seems to make sense.

Why would the Liberal Party, which arguably has the most to lose, at least in the near term, from One Nation’s insurgency, make a deal to cement its demise?

The answer, as with most things that don’t make sense in Australian politics, is Tony Abbott.

Abbott, as Liberal Party president has one mission – to make it back into parliament and, from there, the leadership. From there, in the mind of Abbott and his backers, it’s a hop, skip and a jump back to The Lodge.

Niki Savva, who remains the best person in the country at analysing Liberal Party politics, with an insight borne of having been inside the tent, but never an ideologue, covers Abbott’s resurgence here.

But for many, the question of why remains.

For that, again, you need to understand Abbott.

Abbott’s star has never truly dimmed for the true believers in the Liberal Party, partly because he never actually had time as prime minister to fully cement his own trashed legacy.

Abbott and his acolytes were responsible for Abbott’s demise. It wasn’t backroom dealing, or Malcolm Turnbull, or the “moderates” – it was Abbott and his lieutenants being given their heads that did it. By the time knights and dames came round, the Australian public was so comprehensively sick of the ridiculousness – budget cuts they couldn’t sell, parliamentary expenses scandals, the dynamic with his chief of staff Peta Credlin, who some Liberals believed was calling the shots – that it all culminated with an internal revolt.

Abbott was ousted before he truly had a chance to make a mess of things. And in that vacuum has emerged a somewhat romanticised view of what Abbott could have achieved if only Abbott hadn’t been … Abbott.

It’s nonsense of course – Abbott, left unchecked, would only have inflicted more damage and likely would have ended up rivalling Billy McMahon for Australia’s worst prime minister.

But because he never had a chance to do it, and because he has remained such a strident and true critic, he emerged, in many Liberal circles, as somewhat untouched by the mess of the Liberal governments that followed. Turnbull’s grief didn’t end when Abbott was ousted; you could argue that is when it began, and the subsequent culture wars and lack of authority had Abbott’s fingerprints all over them.

By the time the Liberal Party got to Scott Morrison, it was completely out of touch with what Australians wanted. But Abbott, like his Liberal daddy, John Howard, somehow became Teflon when it came to applying blame.

So even though Abbott has spent the past decade doing his damndest to maintain influence over the Liberal Party, he has never had to truly own the missteps. With the electorate now the most volatile it has been since he was opposition leader, and anyone who would truly oppose him having fallen to the wayside, Abbott’s return to the top of the Liberal heap, aided and abetted by a parliamentary leader too weak to ever really oppose him and too ideological to want to, was inevitable.

He has not wasted any time; he’s been whipping up the troops to prepare for one of their biggest culture wars ever, preparing the Liberals to sink even further into the abyss of the current slop that serves as political discourse. As Savva identified, Abbott has four new slogans: “Stop taxes, demonise migrants, wreck the planet and only ever wave one flag.”

He has also given the green light to preference deals with One Nation, which, on current polling numbers, would have the same effect as in Farrer – driving Liberal candidates into unwinnable positions.

But Abbott doesn’t care about the Liberal Party. He cares about Abbott.

Abbott wants back and he doesn’t care what he destroys to make it happen – he never has. Fresh from his tour of his fiction bestseller: Australia: A History, he’s been laying the groundwork to return to ruling it.

Abbott wants back in the parliament and plans on doing it through a Labor seat. Shortland, held by Labor’s Pat Conroy on the NSW Central Coast, is his favoured option. From there, at least according to those who know Abbott and well, history, Abbott plans on taking the leadership of whatever is left of the Liberal Party and forming a new coalition with One Nation.

Abbott and Credlin helped make Barnaby Joyce – it was Credlin’s line that he was Australia’s “best retail politician” that helped launch his myth, and despite his storied past with Pauline Hanson, Abbott has spent the better part of the past decade telling colleagues they should listen to her.

One Nation wouldn’t join with whatever was left of the Liberal-National Coalition, but it would join with Abbott. From there, Abbott will assume he can do what he did in 2013-14 and take the prime ministership. He’s never given up. He’s never changed course. And like his political daddy, he believes the time will suit him. Hanson is just the warm-up.

None of this considers what the Australian public needs, or solutions, or ways through what will be some pretty untethered and unhinged global times. It’s all about serving personal desires. In that, Hanson and Abbott have always been on a unity ticket.

It’s the political version of re-connecting with your toxic ex on Facebook and thinking you can give it one more go because your current relationship has lost its spark.

We know how that ends. Just as we know how this will end. But the lure of disruption seems more attractive than more of the same. If Labor keeps offering that up – just as it did the last time Abbott played these cards, it is writing the end of its own story.

Abbott needs to be faced front on. Shirt-fronted, some would say. That means giving people not just something to hold on to, in terms of policy changes, but straight-up defences and pushback against his rhetoric.

Abbott has never held back but the rules of civility should never be decided by the aggressor. Let’s see if Labor has learned from history.

Amy Remeikis is a contributing editor for The New Daily and chief political analyst for The Australia Institute

This article was first published on The New Daily.