It's time for the United Kingdom to resume a close relationship with the growth economies of the Commonwealth, says Mayor of London Boris Johnson.
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He is especially is calling for reciprocal immigration rights between the United Kingdom and Australia.
He was speaking in a lecture at the leading international relations think tank, the Sydney-based Lowy Institute for International Policy on 24 August 2013.
Emphasising the very close links between the United Kingdom and Australia, and that Australia had stood with the UK in both world wars, he referred to the fact that in 1999 Australians voted to keep the constitutional monarchy.
He told the story of how in 1992 he had a bet of $100 with academics from Monash University who were insisting that changed to a republic was inevitable, just, he said, as "Barry the chief minister" had predicted the evening of the lecture. (Who could he have been referring to?)
He said that despite the referendum 13 years ago, the Republican academics have not yet paid their the debts.