Will Tony Abbott return to frontline politics? The Liberal party’s most polarising figure can imagine a way

In June last year, the Liberal party’s federal executive met to discuss the next phase of an intervention into the troubled New South Wales division.

The meeting will be a short footnote in the modern history of the Liberal party.

But the outcome offered a telling insight into the party’s internal power dynamics at the time.

In the days before the meeting, the national right faction attempted to install the former prime minister Tony Abbott on a new management committee to run the branch.

The push was comfortably thwarted by allies of Sussan Ley in what was an early win for the new, moderate-aligned leader.

_{Sign up: AU Breaking News email}

If such a push was attempted today, after Angus Taylor last week defeated Ley to win the federal Liberal leadership, it would almost certainly succeed.

The conservatives are back in power in the Liberal party and so too is their most influential – and polarising – figure.

Exactly what role the 28th prime minister plays in shaping this new era of conservative control is a source of intrigue among within the party, eliciting either trepidation or enthusiasm depending on ideological leanings.

Speculation is rife internally that the 68-year-old is positioning himself to replace John Olsen as federal president, overseeing the party’s administrative wing and campaign infrastructure.

Olsen’s position is up for re-election each year at the federal council meeting, which is due to meet in late May.

Other Liberals, speaking on the condition of anonymity, believe Abbott has greater ambitions than serving as a party figurehead with limited public profile.

“Tony has had an interest in the role (of federal president) but what he would really like to do is return to parliament,” one senior source told Guardian Australia.

Earlier this year, Abbott confirmed to the Nine papers that he had one conservation with Peter Dutton about a potential return to parliament but didn’t pursue it after being told it would make the leader’s life more difficult.

Liberals who have spoken with Abbott in recent months say the former member for Warringah, who lost his seat to Zali Steggall at the 2019 federal election, is “itching” to return to the political battlefield in some capacity.

In a written statement to Guardian Australia, Abbott said: “I want to be as helpful as I can be to Angus Taylor and the Liberal party more generally.”

“I suspect that will mean continuing to do what I have been doing since leaving the parliament: writing, speaking, and campaigning to help the party and candidates who would like my support.

“It won’t involve taking on party positions or contesting elections other than in the very unlikely event that it was the clear wish of the party leadership.”

The final line of the statement all but confirms Abbott is open to resurrecting a career in frontline politics if Taylor does what Dutton wouldn’t and actively drafts him in.

That would appear unlikely in the short term despite the close relationship between the two men, meaning the chances of Abbott contesting the byelection in Ley’s soon-to-be former seat of Farrer – as some Liberals hoped he would – seem slim to none.

But regardless of whether he is in parliament, party headquarters or writing Substack essays and appearing on Sky News and the rightwing speaking circuit, the reassertion of the right’s control means Abbott once again wields control over the Liberals’ philosophical direction.

Taylor’s language in the days since winning the leadership has confirmed he is prepared to take the Liberals further to the right in a desperate attempt to stop haemorrhaging support to One Nation.

Just hours after Taylor’s win on Friday, Abbott gave the ABC’s 7.30 program an insight into how far he wants Taylor to lean into Hansonite immigration policies.

“I quite like the way our immigration policy was run in the 50s, 60s and 70s, where there was an expectation on integration from day one and ultimately assimilation,” he said, referencing a period that overlapped with the final decades of the white Australia policy.

Such statements cannot be dismissed as mere commentary from an ex-politician unseated from parliament years ago.

Abbott’s influence will shape Taylor’s Liberals.

The only question is: from where?