New Zealand Māori party calls for a ‘divorce’ from Britain’s royal family

Queen Elizabeth II and then New Zealand prime minister Robert Muldoon in Wellington in 1977. The Māori party has called for New Zealand to ‘divorce’ the crown. Photograph: Tim Graham/Tim Graham Photo Library/Getty Images

The Māori party of New Zealand has called for a “divorce” from the crown and removal of the British royal family as New Zealand’s head of state.

The call came on the 182nd anniversary of the signing of the treaty of Waitangi, or Te Tiriti o Waitangi, New Zealand’s foundational legal document.