Hope and glory to be found elsewhere

BRITAIN NO longer matters so much to New Zealand. The visit here of British Foreign Secretary William Hague this week just reminds us of the fact. Most Kiwis do not know who Hague is. Nearly everyone knows the name of his soon-to-retire American counterpart, Hillary Clinton. Hague is the monkey, Clinton is the organ grinder. America is our major patron, Britain is a second-tier European power.

Hague is a witty politician who has helped David Cameron redefine the Conservative Party as ‘‘modern’’. His foreign policy emphasises human rights, and at least in its rhetoric is a far cry from Margaret Thatcher’s brutal realpolitik. Hague will meet our foreign minister, Murray McCully, who is not witty and in many ways has tried to take our foreign policy back to the past. McCully and John Key have furiously snuggled up to Washington.

Hague’s government still thinks it has a special relationship with the United States, but this is mostly a matter of sentiment. The relationship is between the global superpower and an old friend who is now a largely impotent suitor. Tony Blair thought he could have some influence over George Bush. History suggests he was deluded.

Hague mostly follows the general line laid down by Obama, just as New Zealand does. Both nations have backed the American war in Afghanistan. Both are now desperate to present their coming withdrawal as a victory instead of the ignominious defeat it really is. Both countries have been embarrassed by their complicity with the corrupt torture-state run by Hamid Karzai.

Hague’s visit underlines once again that the ‘‘Mother Country’’ is no longer a major power in world politics. It is no longer the Mother Country either. Forty years ago, it signalled it was heading towards Europe. New Zealand saw this as a disaster and even a kind of betrayal. In fact, it was an unrecognised blessing. It forced us to expand our economic and cultural horizons.

China has displaced Britain as our major economic patron, although Britain remains an important trading partner and in fact a vital market for our lamb. The ties of sentiment remain: Hague will lay a wreath remembering our shared military past. There are also shared political ties. Our politicians and bureaucrats hasten to Britain to study its policies.

In some ways, this is a sad and colonial kind of traffic. Britain and New Zealand are profoundly different societies, and Britain is not a fertile source of political ideas. We could learn much more by studying progressive European countries such as the Scandinavians.

John Key claims David Cameron as a friend, and both fancy themselves as progressive conservatives. Hague, who leapt to attention with a hard-Right address to a Tory conference at age 16 and was in some ways a rigorous Right-winger during his unsuccessful bout as Tory leader, has tried to make himself look modern, too.

But this merely shows how little the Tories have really changed.

They might be for gay marriage, but their economic policy is a brutal form of austerity, and their social policy is mere beneficiary-bashing. Rather like a nastier version of National’s.

William Hague will be welcomed here as a senior representative of a country that once meant the world to us.

It no longer does, and that is a great thing.

Britain and New Zealand are profoundly different societies, and Britain is not a fertile source of political ideas. We could learn much more by studying progressive European countries such as the Scandinavians.