Even if he scrapes in, Malcolm Turnbull has lost this election, as this column warned on 28 May. If he does not quietly resign, as a republican he should understand Cromwell’s instruction, ‘In the name of God, go!’

Calling this election was always a major error of judgment, explicable only as a desperate attempt to counter the increasing impression that he is weak and indecisive. I asked then whether the Liberal Party would forgive him if Tony Abbott’s hard-won gains were lost for no good purpose. But the Liberal Party, now the captive of an alien hard left-lobbyist faction, must also examine itself. As the respected former Liberal MP Charlie Lynn says, the party today has been ‘hijacked by lobbyists… to enrich their own business activities’. It must do what similar parties in comparable countries did long ago − clean itself out and neutralise the powerbrokers just by being, once again, a democratic party.’

Turnbull justified this election as the way to overcome the Senate’s failure to pass Abbott’s bills to democratise the unions and clean up the building industry. But then he hardly bothered to campaign on them − at least until his petulant foot-stamping ‘victory’ speech which recalled his post republic referendum tantrum accusing John Howard of breaking the nation’s heart. As the Australian’s former editor Chris Mitchell observed, Abbott ‘would have torn Labor to shreds’ not only over trade union corruption but also over such crucial matters as climate policy, electricity prices, asylum-seekers and defence. And a focus group of undecided western Sydney voters hosted by David Speers on Sky TV were negative about both Turnbull and Shorten. The political leader they most empathised with was Tony Abbott, a conclusion about western Sydney views supported by none other than Labor’s Senator Dastyari.

Turnbull had justified knifing Abbott by claiming he would communicate without slogans (such as ‘jobs and growth’?), presenting such an economic narrative he would deliver a landslide at least as great as Abbott’s in 2013.

Turnbull was only able to seize the leadership because of Abbott’s delivery of policies crucial to the nation, policies which Turnbull could never have delivered. The most important of these, that on border security, was delivered only because Abbott, almost alone in the West, had the courage to go against elite opinion. Cameron failed and lost the confidence of the nation. Merkel invited in over one million self selected welfare and economic migrants, with Islamic State indicating this would be used as a cover to place more terrorists in Europe. And Obama’s determination to throw the borders open to a massive influx of illegal immigration and to legitimise their entry is the principal cause of the rise of Trump.

While Turnbull wisely didn’t reverse Abbott’s achievements on border security, his support has been half-hearted. He refused to put the conservative immigration minister Peter Dutton onto the cabinet national security committee, and is reluctant to concede that the principal cause of terrorism today is Islamic, coming not only from Islamic State and similar cults but also from the Tehran regime and the teachings of religious schools often funded across the world by Saudi oil money. In addition to the repetition of the mantra, ‘Islam is a religion of peace’, the Turnbull government persists in flirting with Tehran and never concedes that some of the taxpayer-funded madrassas here are propaganda sources for either terrorism or the introduction of alien values and practices inimical to ours.

While no one can recall any prime ministerial Passover or Lenten dinners, Turnbull astounded voters by interrupting the election campaign with a well publicised Iftar Ramadan dinner at Kirribilli House. Guests included Sheik Shady Al-Suleiman, whose views on homosexuals, Jews, Christmas parties, jihad and the punishment of adulteresses have shocked the nation. So has the fact that far from being an isolated extremist, he was elected president of the National Imams Council.

Apart from his weakness in national security, Turnbull has been a disappointment in presenting his promised economic narrative. His on-the table off-the-table policy musings on a range of crucial issues including the GST, negative gearing and even returning income tax powers to the states have appalled seasoned observers and surprised a general public not accustomed to seeing such weakness and indecision in their leaders. So they were not going to be impressed by his election fairy tale about some surplus emerging in the future years after he spends yet another $150 billion of borrowed money, which seemed only marginally better than a similar fairy tale from that other spendthrift assassin, Bill Shorten who planned to spend $15 billion more.

In addition to these failings, Turnbull went to the election without the benefit of two key people, the outstanding former party boss Brian Loughnane and the prime ministerial right hand, Peta Credlin. (That she was the target of a commentariat united front confirms that she must have been as effective as she is in her new career.) Above all he shot himself in the foot by not having the experienced Abbott on his front bench. The most likely reason is that he assumes Abbott would do to him what he did and spend his time plotting to undermine him. But Abbott is an honourable man. He only stood for the leadership in 2009 when no other contender would stand up to the imposition by global warmists of a massively expensive and useless ETS on the economy.

Like strategist Mark Textor, Turnbull went to the election assuming the conservative base had nowhere else to go. So like a thief in the night he ignored all proper processes, including the current Productivity Commission Review his government commissioned, and foolishly included in the election budget a new tax on the pension phase of those whose super funds produced incomes from bank term accounts of about $35,000 p.a. That went down so badly among Liberal voters that, according to Senator Abetz, it was a principle cause of the loss of every Liberal seat in Tasmania.

Turnbull must go, Abbott come back and the parties reform. If they don’t, the public should demand that Parliament require that in return for the legal and financial privileges they have awarded themselves, including unaccountable electoral funding, they must democratise, handing preselections to their members and registered supporters.

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