New England is at the heart of Australia. The Canberra bubble may not like it, but Canberra is merely a parasite that exists on the sweat of the brow of regional Australia.

Barnaby Joyce has always been more than a politician. He’s a force of nature, a bull-headed battler who speaks for the farmer staring down the barrel of a Net Zero fantasy, the miner whose livelihood is sacrificed at the altar of urban virtue-signalling, and the forgotten people who just want to get on with living a prosperous Australian life.

Today, Barnaby formally resigned from the Nationals, the party he once led with a mix of charm and chaos. He’s indicated he’ll sit on the crossbench and won’t run for New England at the next election.

That would be a mistake.

Reports indicate that Barnaby is considering running for a Senate seat with Pauline Hanson’s One Nation.

I think he needs to stand up as a One Nation representative for New England.

Such a move would send shockwaves through the Coalition’s crumbling edifice, and it would be a masterstroke of political reinvention. Such a move would be a chance for the regions to reclaim their voice.

I’m sitting in the Robert Menzies Institute’s annual conference at the University of Melbourne. Part of me feels like a traitor to the Great Man. But the rest of me is sick of witnessing pro-Palestinian graffiti, students wearing keffiyehs and black justice t-shirts, and artworks referring to ‘unceded lands’ funded by taxpayers who have no choice but to fund such nonsense.

While it may be wishful thinking, I am excited by the prospect of Barnaby’s role in One Nation. I am excited that conservative Australians might have a fighting chance in deciding the future of our country.

That people refer to this politician as Barnaby is proof of his Australianness. Albo and Scomo had to make up nicknames for themselves as part of their self-promotion. Barnaby doesn’t need a marketing plan.

Barnaby is Brand Barnaby, like him or not.

Sure, the writing was on the wall for Barnaby. He referred to his position in the House as the ‘ejection seat’, about as far away as you can get from the despatch boxes and where you’re sent when the party wants you out. He said Peter Dutton asked him to quit twice…

But the writing was also on the wall locally. Just weeks ago, Steve Coxhead, the chairman of the Tamworth branch in Barnaby’s own electorate, jumped ship to One Nation, citing the Nationals’ betrayal on climate policies that strangle rural Australia with environmental red tape. Coxhead’s defection wasn’t just a one-off, it was the canary in the coalmine, a signal that the grassroots has had enough of a party drifting towards the Teal-tinted centre (that is actually left-of-centre).

In real terms, Barnaby would be justified in following his constituents. It wouldn’t be about capitulation, it’d be about loyalty. Barnaby wouldn’t be ditching his people, he’d be representing them. In an electorate where One Nation is on the rise, his move would ensure New Englanders won’t be told what to do by moderates in the Liberals and Nationals (who are too busy supporting socialist energy subsidy grifters to represent the people who once upon a time sweated blood for them).

What elevates such a move beyond local survival is Barnaby’s singular brand.

At 58, he’s not politically irrelevant. He’s one of the strongest fundraisers for the Nationals.

He’s also a political phoenix, as indomitable as Bob Katter in his Queensland fiefdom. Barnaby has a similar approach, a New South Wales version of that maverick magic. He’s the bloke who knows voters by name. And crucially, he doesn’t suffer fools, least of all the Woke nonsense that’s infected our national discourse like a bad case of ideological mange.

While the Albanese government’s extreme left agenda is pushing renewable fantasies that jack up power bills and empower their communist mates in the Greens, sealing Australia’s fate one concession at a time, Barnaby could be the antidote.

No apologies for defending coal jobs, no hand-wringing over ‘systemic’ this or ‘neo-colonial’ that. He’s the unfiltered voice of the forgotten people, and One Nation’s raw, no-holds-barred platform is the perfect venue for Barnaby Unplugged.

Of course, not everyone’s raising a schooner in toast. Nationals Senator Matt Canavan, once Joyce’s ally and staffer, has piled on with the predictable barbs. Canavan’s critique smacks of sour grapes. After all, it was Barnaby who first sounded the alarm on Net Zero lunacy back when the Nationals were still genuflecting to it.

Let me be blunt. Something has to give.

The Coalition’s slow bleed under Sussan Ley has left it a shadow of its former self, haemorrhaging votes as the Liberal and National hierarchy try to court people who already vote for Labor and the Greens.

One Nation, buoyed by recent polls hitting 18 per cent nationally, is rising quickly on the right. Barnaby’s arrival wouldn’t just be a headline grab, it’d be rocket fuel.

Unlike Mark Latham, whose ill-fated fall from the One Nation platform doesn’t bode well for major party defectors, Barnaby would enter One Nation not as a Trojan horse but as a natural fit.

At an age when many of the party’s familiar faces are taking the easy road, Barnaby’s primed to lead, perhaps even succeeding Hanson as the face of a party that’s shedding its fringe image for something fiercer and more electable.

Imagine a Barnaby-led One Nation, contesting seats from the bush to the suburbs, siphoning disaffected Liberals and Nationals alike. With One Nation branches sprouting up across Australia, the infrastructure is there. Barnaby’s charisma could turn it into a juggernaut, forcing the major parties to confront the real Australia, the one that resents being lectured to by inner-city elites about pronouns while their electricity bills soar and borders fray.

It wouldn’t be betrayal, it’d be evolution. The Nationals, wedded to a Coalition that’s lost its conservative spine, are yesterday’s news. Barnaby’s defection could be the catalyst One Nation needs to leap from protest party to powerbroker, just as the Greens cosy up to Labor’s environmental cabal.

Barnaby Joyce wouldn’t be walking away from a fight. He’d be picking a better ring. In doing so, he’d remind us that politics isn’t about party loyalty, it’s about representing the will of the people who matter most. Who better to represent those who grow our food, dig our resources, and keep the lights on despite the odds than the unapologetic and unbreakable Barnaby? Australia needs politicians like him now more than ever.

Dr Michael de Percy @FlaneurPolitiq is the Spectator Australia’s Canberra Press Gallery Correspondent. If you would like to support his writing, or read more of Michael, please visit his website.