Today’s British election is very likely to be the most hard-fought and tightest election in years. The likeliest outcome would seem to be a Conservative Government ruling either with the slimmest of margins or in some sort of coalition with Nick Clegg’s resurgent liberal democrats. But does the election matter to Australians? It may be that the most important effect of the UK election in Australia is that it will be much harder, despite recent scepticism about such debates, for Australian politicians to reject US-style televised debates in future Australian elections. The three leadership debates have had an electrifying effect on the campaign. The first debate propelled the “third party’s” Nick Clegg to a position of prominence in the minds of the British people (Bob Brown will have noticed this and may be encouraged to agitate for equal billing in future Australian debates).

As far as the party policies are concerned, Australians are most likely to feel the effect of the election outcome in two areas: immigration (because many young Australians in particular want to live in the UK) and foreign policy (because the UK is an important ally to Australia in its war in Afghanistan).

Clegg and his Liberal Democrats, for example, have adopted an Australian-style immigration policy that will require non-EU immigrants to work in remoter regional areas of the UK (this has been ridiculed as unworkable by the other parties). On foreign policy, the liberal democrats are perhaps more lukewarm about Afghanistan than the incumbent Labour Government. A medium term withdrawal is not out of the question.

The Tories offer a tougher vision of immigration with a promise to cut immigration to 1990s levels with limits on non-EU economic immigrants and a stricter student visa programme. The Conservative manifesto is vague on foreign policy but last month David Cameron made it clear that the Tories would begin withdrawing UK troops from Afghanistan in the coming Parliamentary term. This would put some pressure on the Rudd Government to effect a similar withdrawal of Australian forces.

And what about the ruling Labour Party? Gordon Brown is unlikely to survive despite a late revival. His perceived dourness, his lack of Blairish charisma and a disastrous encounter with Mrs Gillian Duffy (“that bigoted woman”) has probably ended his hopes of remaining Prime Minister. Lacking Blair’s personal connections with Australia, the PM has taken little interest in Anglo-Australian relations. Labour has, though, copied the Australian “points system” in assessing immigration claims. This is bad news for unskilled immigrants from outside the EU who will not be allowed to work and live in the UK. Meanwhile, Labour has made a commitment to remain in Afghanistan alongside the Australians. This is at least one reason why the Rudd Government might welcome the continuation of the Brown Prime Ministership.

In the end, this may be the most important election in the UK for a decade. But for those Australians not fighting foreign wars or contemplating emigration to the old country, the results will be interesting but not life-changing.