ROBERT KITCHIN/STUFF British High Commissioner Laura Clarke speaks about New Zealand's trading relationship with the UK, and how its changed. The spectre of the United Kingdom’s decision to join the European common market in 1973 has long lingered as a sore point in New Zealand. Grandparents with British passports told their Kiwi children of the shame that, less than three decades after fighting in World War II, the UK turned away from antipodean lamb and butter, and damaged New Zealand’s economy in the process. But that’s not true, British High Commissioner Laura Clarke says. As Britain now turns away from the EU, with Brexit ending its participation in the common market, and a UK-New Zealand free trade agreement on the horizon, Clarke is looking to set the record straight.