The New Zealand Herald reported at the start of August that Royal Tours to our part of the world are expected to ramp up in the next few months. The Royals don’t come here during winter months. But what was most interesting though is that the Herald article mentions the existence of the “Royal Visits Committee” - a committee of the British Cabinet that “coordinates official overseas visits for members of the royal family.” This committee’s composition very clearly reiterates the British nature of the monarchy and the fact the British Royals are a tool for British diplomacy:
A palace source told the Daily Mail yesterday that “state visits are back in business”, despite suggestions that the British government’s Foreign Office and Royal Visits Committee have been slow to approve overseas tours.
The committee is chaired by the Permanent Under Secretary of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) - in other words, the British ministry of foreign affairs and trade - and comprises the Private Secretaries to the King, the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Cambridge, and the British Prime Minister, the British National Security Adviser, the Chief Executive of United Kingdom Trade and Investment and the FCO Director of Protocol.
In New Zealand, our Department of Internal Affairs co-ordinates with our cabinet over Royal visits, which they say are at the “invite of the Prime Minister [of New Zealand].” What they don’t mention though is that while the invites might be issued by our Prime Minister, there are informal communications between the Royal Visits Committee, which controls and determines where Royal Visits are to occur.
And what is the basis for the committee’s decisions? Following William and Kate’s disastrous tour of the Caribbean in 2022 we had some insights on this:
Royals experts, including one former palace PR, said that an enormous amount of planning went in to the visits, often starting years in advance. They are led by government in line with Foreign Office diplomatic, culture and commercial priorities.
Philip Murphy, a professor at the University of London and former director of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, said that although the palace had “taken a relaxed view” about countries removing the Queen as head of state, “the British government has been less consistent about that” – ministers are thought to be anxious to preserve the soft power benefits of the Commonwealth after Brexit.
All of this confirms exactly what we’ve been saying for years - Royal tours are PR exercises to promote the British Monarchy. They have next to nothing to do with New Zealand or representing our interests to the world. They are now funded by Tourism New Zealand - the only apparent advantage we can squeeze from them is getting more British tourists to New Zealand, and even then the evidence that they actually do that is very sparse.
It’s time to end this Royal farce - with our own head of state, we would only pay the security costs for foreign visitors, which is what the British Royals are. Our independence should mean where our head of state goes and who they see is determined by our democratically elected government, not Britain’s.