Politics

Class act: The working-class game binding London and Canberra

Published

2 hours ago

August 16, 2026

CANBERRA — When a new British prime minister speaks to their Australian counterpart for the first time, it’s a reset of Australia’s oldest and deepest relationship.

The agenda seems obvious: Intelligence sharing. Tariffs. Hot war and simmering conflict.

If the conversation turns to sport, cricket has often been the obvious choice.

But as Andy Burnham began his introductory calls to world leaders, he and Anthony Albanese got to rugby league.

On their July 23 leader-to-leader call, the two men talked animatedly about the sport they have each spent a lifetime inside.

Albanese told Burnham he would love to see the Kangaroos, the Australian national side, tour the United Kingdom soon.

“I used to love watching the old Kangaroo Tours to the U.K.,” Albanese told Blue Light News, reminiscing about “Mal Meninga’s try at Old Trafford in the green and gold” in 1990, in Burnham’s home town of Manchester, one of “those small grounds where the fans are right there on the tiny dead ball lines.”

By the end of the call, according to Burnham’s office, he agreed to support Albanese’s team, the South Sydney Rabbitohs. “I’m happy to barrack for Prime Minister Burnham’s Leopards in return,” Albanese said.

It wasn’t just small talk.

The AUKUS military alliance requires London and Canberra to operate at a level of trust that treaties and memorandums can’t manufacture. Delivering nuclear-powered submarines to Australia to ward off Chinese aggression will take decades of shared industrial secrets, shipyard schedules and nuclear technology.

Personal chemistry between leaders is not a substitute for institutional machinery, but it is the lubricant.

Burnham and Albanese have a shared, unfakeable claim to a working-class sport at exactly the moment both left-wing leaders are trying to hold onto working-class voters in the face of a right-wing populist challenge.

Burnham told Blue Light News that deep love of the sport is “one of the many reasons the friendship between our two countries runs as deep as it does.”

“In the North of England, rugby league is in our blood. It is played and watched week in, week out, rain or shine, and I know that is a feeling shared in communities right across Australia too,” he said.

The code of collective action

Burnham’s urgent political mission is to stem the flow of working-class voters who have switched from Labour to Nigel Farage’s hard-right Reform UK, in many post-industrial Northern towns of Lancashire and Yorkshire, and nearby Cumbria and Cheshire, where rugby league is played.

Reconnecting with these communities is critical for Burnham’s hopes of saving Labour from defeat at the next U.K. general election, which is not due until 2029 but could potentially come sooner.

And the culture of rugby league is one that aligns closely with Labour’s left-wing history and its mission in these very same parts of the country: The sport only exists because of a fight about money and class

In 1895, clubs in the north of England broke from Rugby Union over the refusal of the sport’s authorities to compensate players for wages lost to injury or time away from work.

Wealthy players didn’t need the support, while working-class players decided their only option was to quit, and set up a rival code that allowed them to receive a wage for their efforts.

Players in Australia — formed out of British colonies and still firmly in the British Empire — soon followed suit, and the split never healed. Neither did the class coding.

Union, which was devised in a historic, prestigious private school, remains a fixture of British and Australian fee-paying schools.

Australia’s opposition leader, Angus Taylor, a Rhodes Scholar and former McKinsey consultant, plays Rugby Union. Albanese, who grew up with a single mother in social housing, played league.

Burnham’s Northern assets

League “has a very particular culture,” said Tony Collins, emeritus professor of history at De Montfort University and the author of several books on the sport. It understands itself, he said, as working-class, democratic and inclusive — and reflexively anti-establishment.

That is a useful thing for a politician like Burnham to be fluent in. Their League connections present them, he said, as ordinary blokes voters could have a pint with. “It’s the man in the pub thing,” Collins said.

Burnham’s northern identity is one of the few assets his party has that Farage cannot replicate.

The British leader has decades of involvement in the sport, serving as honorary chair of Leigh Centurions (Now Leigh Leopards), a team dating back to 1895. In 2018 he served as president of Rugby Football League, the sport’s governing body, an appointment he described as “one of the greatest honors I’ve ever been given.”

Burnham’s advocacy for greater investment in community-driven sport mirrors Albanese’s passion.

“Rugby league is about community. It’s about local identity,” Albanese said, and those who see the sport, its teams and its players as commodities to be traded or cut “don’t understand the sense of belonging it fosters.”

The pair talk about rugby league in the way Labor leaders were once able to talk about their own parties: mass movements marked by their sense of tightly-knit community.

Albanese’s 118-year grudge

Named for hawkers who walked Sydney’s streets selling wild rabbits to those too poor to afford other meat, Albanese’s Rabbitohs were founded in 1908 by working men from the city’s factory belt.

The club went on to win 20 premierships between 1908 and 1971 — still a record — the year Albanese’s mother took her starry-eyed 8-year-old son to watch the sport’s Grand Final.

Albanese played the sport for practical reasons: he could reach the training ground at inner Sydney’s Redfern Oval by bus — his family could not afford a car.

His days ended after school as he climbed the Labor ranks, becoming one of its youngest officials and an MP from his early 30s. Then came Rupert Murdoch.

In 1996, the newly-elected Albanese rose in the House to condemn a Federal Court decision clearing the establishment of Super League, a breakaway Murdoch-funded competition.

Calling it a battle between the community history of the game and the “private domination of this game by an individual,” Albanese risked his political career in labeling Murdoch’s venture “un-Australian”.

Famous for brow-beating Labor politicians, Murdoch’s newspapers controlled more than 70 percent of Australian news print circulation and set the daily agenda.

While Super League eventually collapsed back into the non-profit National Rugby League, the Rabbitohs did not survive the wreckage. Administrators cut the club in 1999, seeking a leaner competition and clubs with bigger fan bases and deeper pockets.

Albanese used his office to cultivate a backlash that became the largest sustained sports protest in Australian history.

As a Rabbitohs board member, Albanese tabled motions in Parliament, helped organize rallies and joined nearly 100,000 people marching through Sydney demanding their team back.

“This debate goes to the very heart of the alienation which people are feeling about our society,” he told the House in Nov. 1999. He was in the Federal Court in 2001 when it ordered the Rabbitohs readmitted to the competition, finding their exclusion breached the Trade Practices Act.

Authenticity dividend

While many would find it hard to outdo life membership of their favorite team — an honor Albanese received in 2013 — he took his fandom a step further: marrying a Rabbitohs fan who shouted the club’s battle cry from the audience during a speech by Albanese.

A first date with pension fund executive Jodie Haydon followed just before Covid lockdowns, and the pair married in 2025.

Businessperson Peter Holmes à Court in 2006 bought a 75 percent stake in the Rabbitohs with actor Russell Crowe, with Albanese’s blessing. He argues the prime minister’s obsession is the rare kind voters detect as genuine.

“His love for the Rabbitohs is absolutely authentic,” Holmes à Court told Blue Light News. Instead of seeing a politician looking for photo opportunities, with Albanese his team pride is “like an organ, another arm.”

Albanese’s fandom occasionally overwhelms his official role.

In March 2026 he joined an on-field invasion draped in club colors after the Rabbitohs’ Alex Johnston broke the NRL’s all-time try record, telling Nine Television “it was worth it to be part of history.” In July he told comedian podcaster Nikki Osborne that a Souths win is “always a good aphrodisiac.”

“Anti-snobbery is the new movement, right? You can’t be too woke, but you also can’t be too elite in a populist revolutionary world,” Holmes à Court said.

Albanese rallies to the defense of his sport at the dispatch box on the floor of Parliament, and promises to use his relationship with Burnham to “discuss getting more kids off screens and onto sporting fields in our two great countries.”

Burnham keeps it similarly practical: “Together we are delivering good jobs through our AUKUS programme, ensuring young people get a good start in life, and driving down the cost of living. I know as two progressive Labour leaders we have a close friendship ahead of us.”

Albanese won’t be getting his desired Kangaroos tour of the U.K. this year.

England’s team is headed Down Under instead, for the Rugby League World Cup, beginning Oct. 15.

Politics

Bernie Sanders says he can’t get involved in every race. Some allies wish he would.

Published

3 days ago

August 13, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Sen. Bernie Sanders says he can’t be everywhere at once — even though some of his allies want him to be.

Democratic socialist Francesca Hong lost by less than 4,000 votes in Wisconsin’s gubernatorial primary, an outcome several high-profile progressives are blaming on Sanders and other top national progressive leaders for staying out of the race. Some said his endorsement alone could have helped bring in badly needed resources for Hong. Others said the Vermont senator has a responsibility to play widely across the battle map.

Sanders, in an interview, touted a series of progressive wins Tuesday night and brushed off the criticism.

“My response is that we have limited resources and capabilities, and there are a lot of really great candidates who have run for office who we have not endorsed,” Sanders told Blue Light News on Wednesday.

“We can’t endorse every single candidate,” he added. “So, you know, we have to pick and choose and I think that Hong ran a very, very great, and very strong, grassroots campaign, got a lot of people involved and I applaud her for that.”

Hong ultimately lost to Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, a major victory for establishment Democrats who worried she wouldn’t be able to win a general election in a top battleground. It was a notable blow for the far left that overshadowed progressive Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan’s win in the Minnesota Senate race the same night.

Sanders and other progressive leaders “have a responsibility, whether they like it or they don’t,” to help steer candidates in the movement, said Cenk Uygur, a progressive activist who co-founded the Young Turks and Justice Democrats. “If they endorse people, it makes a difference. If they don’t endorse people these days, sometimes it makes a bigger difference. Because there’s a certain expectation, and when they don’t deliver on that expectation, it gives people pause. So it feels like, to some degree, they’re shirking their responsibility.”

Uygur also criticized Sanders for saying on a podcast ahead of the primary that he was “not that familiar” with the Wisconsin race.

“I love Bernie, but that’s not true. Sorry, brother, but you have a giant team. Of course somebody on your team knows who’s running for governor in Wisconsin.” Uygur told Blue Light News on Thursday.

One Democratic operative working on progressive campaigns, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the electoral dynamics, also rejected Sanders’ argument, noting the senator won Wisconsin’s presidential primary in 2016.

“He knows Wisconsin very well,” the operative said, adding: “What resources? You’re not cutting checks. [Sanders] endorsing somebody raises the money.”

Sanders in the interview noted primary wins from Flanagan, Rebecca Cooke in Wisconsin’s 3rd District and Matt Little in the crowded race for Rep. Angie Craig’s Minnesota seat — all Democrats he endorsed.

“Needless to say, I’m feeling really very good,” Sanders said. “The American people are catching on that we have an economy that is rigged, the very rich are getting richer while working families are struggling.”

But the Wisconsin governor primary result Tuesday exposed a critical vulnerability for a movement that has largely relied on Sanders and a handful of other headline-grabbing stars, such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), to help seal the deal in contentious races as progressives look to prove they can play in competitive seats. The underdog wing of the party, some progressives argue, can’t be selective about where it’s playing if they want to take on a vast and well-funded establishment.

The bulk of the blame is being laid at Sanders’ feet in part because the movement he turbocharged in 2016 has struggled to land on a clear successor. Some progressives argue there’s an overreliance on Sanders and leaders such as Ocasio-Cortez.

Our Revolution, a group born from Sanders’ 2016 campaign but that the senator no longer associates with, blasted the broader progressive ecosystem for not doing more for Hong in a post early Wednesday morning, as the returns in Wisconsin showed Crowley was poised to defeat Hong. Several groups that have backed insurgent progressives in other races declined to join Our Revolution in getting involved in the governor’s race.“We cannot build progressive power while gatekeeping our own movement through the eyes of the establishment,” the group posted.

Sanders pushed back: “Our Revolution is an organization I’ve not had any interaction with, any participation with … for I think nine years,” he said in response. “They do what they want and they say what they want. They have nothing to do with me.”

Our Revolution declined comment on Sanders’ remarks and on its post.

Nina Turner, a former Our Revolution leader and Sanders 2020 co-chair who had backed Hong, said support from “more well-known, more popular, actively elected progressive types … probably would have” made a difference in Hong’s race. She declined to call anyone out specifically for not getting involved.

“The progressive movement is going to have to reckon with how we continue to win around certain personalities,” Turner said. “I don’t think the movement should put all our hopes and dreams on certain personalities to come out or to not come out, because it is their choice and they have a right to their choice, even if I don’t agree with it.”

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) was one of the few national progressive figures who had endorsed Hong. He has employed a far more aggressive endorsement strategy than Sanders this primary season and said he sees an advantage to backing candidates early, despite the potential headwinds facing long-shot contenders, as long as they align with him on policy.

But he wasn’t willing to play the blame game in the aftermath of Wisconsin’s primary, saying in a text message that: “We have so many candidates running and I believe progressive leaders have been doing an extraordinary job lifting them up.”

A spokesperson for Ocasio-Cortez, who has also faced criticism for not backing for Hong, declined to comment.

Not everyone on the left believes Sanders and other progressive stars could have swung a race in which several other factors were working against Hong. The candidate did very little traditional advertising. She faced a barrage of negative press over controversial past social media comments that put her on defense over everything from public safety to Thanksgiving. Several candidates likely siphoned away votes from both Hong and Crowley — including two who dropped out after voting began: Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez and former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes.

Dillon Sheehan, the chapter secretary for the Madison Area Democratic Socialists of America, which endorsed Hong, said “it’s entirely possible” big-name progressives like Sanders could have “put her over the edge.”

But “we need candidates who can win without Bernie’s endorsement, he’s not going to be able to endorse forever,” Sheehan said. “I think what this shows is that even without his endorsement, without Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s endorsement, [Hong] did fantastic.”

Politics

Crowley zeroes in on ‘MAGA extremism’ to rebuild a fractured Wisconsin coalition

Published

3 days ago

August 13, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

David Crowley has a strategy to win over the voters who backed democratic socialist Francesca Hong on Tuesday: make the governor’s race an existential fight against “MAGA extremism.”

Wisconsin Democrats have spent the past day scrambling to unite the far left and centrist factions of the party after a bitter primary battle defined by questions of electability and how far left of an ideology to pursue. The same is happening in Michigan, where the party has just three months to mend broken fences and get progressive Abdul El-Sayed elected in another competitive state this November.

Crowley told Blue Light News he plans to use GOP Rep. Tom Tiffany and President Donald Trump as the foils that bring everyone together.

“We’re not all going to agree on everything. But I think we agree that the ultimate goal is making sure that we don’t have a MAGA extremist and congressman Tom Tiffany sitting in the governor’s office,” Crowley said in an interview Thursday, adding that the state “has a grand opportunity in putting some level of check on Trump’s agenda” amid the “affordability crisis.”

Democrats view holding onto the governor’s mansion in Wisconsin — a top battleground state that Trump won by just shy of 30,000 votes in 2024 — as critical for acting as a bulwark against Trump. They’re hoping to secure a governing trifecta in the state for the first time since 2010.

Crowley, the Milwaukee County executive who was hand-picked by current Gov. Tony Evers, said he plans to not only fold in the left flank, but also reach out to independents and previous GOP voters who “feel rejected by this current Republican party.” Evers himself ousted GOP then-Gov. Scott Walker in 2018 thanks to a coalition that cut across Democratic strongholds, independents and some Republican-leaning voters.

Crowley also said he’s already talked to “some Republicans who are more interested in defeating Tom Tiffany.”

Trump’s approval rating has been continually slipping, and Crowley’s advisers believe focusing on the cost of living under the Trump administration amid an unpopular Iran war is a sweet spot to hit a broad cross-section of voters.

But even as he committed to reaching out to voters who had backed Hong, Crowley told Blue Light News he would not campaign with some of her top surrogates on the trail — and demurred when asked whether he’d bring on any Hong allies to staff his general election campaign, saying everyone is “welcome” at the table.

When asked whether he would campaign with controversial, leftist social media influencer Hasan Piker, Crowley responded: “No.”

“I don’t know Hasan, but I always want to be focused on Wisconsin voters,” he added.

Hong has committed to hitting the trail with Crowley ahead of November, but many of his allies see her as too much of a political liability to be directly involved. They’re worried her brand of democratic socialism — and past controversial social media posts about defunding the police and canceling Thanksgiving — could affect Crowley’s wider appeal.Crowley also isn’t budging on a key campaign policy issue that divided the primary: He will not embrace the moratorium on data center development that Hong ran on.

“No moratorium,” Crowley said in the interview, adding he and Hong do agree on adding “guardrails” on data center development and operation via a package of legislation.

“I let folks know exactly where I stood on data centers,” he said. “That’s why we were able to not only consolidate many of those undecided voters, but get many rural communities to support us as well, because we have a common-sense approach to make sure that we’re protecting our environment, protecting our water, and protecting ourselves … when it comes down to these data centers.”

Politics

Platner announced as speaker for activist-led event in Maine

Published

3 days ago

August 13, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Former Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner, who dropped out of the race last month amid sexual assault allegations, was announced as a speaker for a Labor Day event in Ellsworth, Maine, next month.

The event was organized by the groups Hancock County Activists and Acadia Action Peacemakers, according to information shared with the Hancock County Democratic Party. Both have been behind “No Kings” protests and other organized events in the area since the start of last year. Neither responded immediately to inquiries about the event on Thursday.

Platner, who is from nearby Sullivan, Maine, dropped out of the Senate race following a July Blue Light News report that a woman he dated accused him of sexually assaulting her in 2021. Platner denied the allegation.

Marcia Myers, the chair of the Hancock County Democratic Party, said the event set to feature Platner was not a sanctioned party event but that the party often shares information about activist-led events in the area. The county party’s Facebook and Instagram posts mentioning Platner’s event were deleted, though the event was still listed on the party’s website.

Platner did not immediately respond to an inquiry about the event on Thursday.

Platner was replaced in the Senate race by former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson, as Democrats are seeking to take on GOP Sen. Susan Collins in an election of high importance to both parties nationally.

Outside groups supporting Collins have sought to tie Jackson to Platner, noting Jackson, who previously ran for governor, endorsed Platner’s campaign and appeared at rallies for him. Jackson called for Platner to drop out of the race after the sexual assault allegation.

Jalen Beckford contributed to this story.