Mayor calls for easier immigration route for Aussies

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, believes Australians should be allowed to move freely to Britain, claiming that the UK would be better off bringing in immigrants from Commonwealth countries than it would the EU.

London Mayor Boris Johnson
In his latest column for the Telegraph newspaper, written while in Australia, Johnson attacked the EU while at the same time praising the close links Britain shares with Oz and other Commonwealth countries.

“We need to raise our eyes beyond Europe, forging and intensifying links with countries that are going to be growing in the decades ahead,” the Mayor wrote. “Countries that offer immense opportunities for British goods, people, services and capital.

“And you could not do better than by starting with Australia.”

Johnson believes that the close cultural links shared by Britain and Australia means that Australians would far easier be able to adapt to everyday life in the UK than most immigrants from European countries.

Of the EU, Johnson said: “Thanks in part to the misbegotten euro project, the EU has turned into a microclimate of economic gloom, with colossal unemployment and misery in those many parts of Europe that are being brutally deprived of the safety valve of devaluation.

“Since 1988, when Jacques Delors and others launched their frantic drive for monetary union, Europe has shrunk in importance and in its contribution to world output – from about 29 per cent to about 19 per cent today; and that is in spite of the considerable expansion of the EU.”

Australian emigration statistics reveal that in the 2010/11 migration year, a total of 15,119 Australian citizens left the country to settle in the UK.