British ‘Guilt’ Concerning Anglo-New Zealand Relations and the Migration of Former IRA Detainees, 1970-1977

Abstract

This article examines how Britain’s deteriorating relations with New Zealand in the early 1970s rendered the London government to accommodate the Wellington administration’s foreign policy decisions at the risk of exposing Britain’s contentious internal policy arrangements to the wider world. Britain’s decision in the late 1960s and early 1970s to withdraw her troops from Southeast Asia and to join the European Economic Community had a negative impact on her diplomatic relations with various Commonwealth partners, including her traditionally strong bond with New Zealand. This was evident in the increasing anti-British sentiment amongst the people of New Zealand and in the introduction of anti-British policies by the Wellington government in the early 1970s. Consequently, Britain actively sought to placate New Zealand’s feelings and to improve Anglo-New Zealand relations by agreeing to accommodate New Zealand Prime Minister Robert Muldoon’s policy of allowing former IRA detainees in Northern Ireland to emigrate to New Zealand, even though this meant that Britain’s controversial detention policy in Northern Ireland could be laid bare to global scrutiny. London’s high-risk decision to give unofficial advice to Wellington on the suitability of candidates for emigration had to be concealed in order to give the impression that the British government was not in any way involved in New Zealand’s decisions. Therefore, when questions were raised in the British Parliament over the question of London’s involvement in Muldoon’s scheme, the British government went so far as to mislead the Commons on the issue.