UNITED NATIONS (AP) – Britain’s new UN ambassador says the government feels “gung ho” about continuing his role as a key player on the world stage despite his exit from the European Union.
Barbara Woodward pointed out the UK’s permanent seat on the powerful UN Security Council, its presidency this year of the Group of Seven Major Industrialized Countries, its membership in the Group of 20 Leading Economic Powers and NATO, and the presentation of the next United Nations global climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, in November.
“Do not underestimate the power of the relationship with the EU,” she stressed in an interview with The Associated Press last week. “There are a lot of values and principles we share with European partners, which I think will be a good place.”
Britain’s long and sometimes controversial divorce from the EU became final on 31 December, a rift that left the 27 – member bloc without one of its main economic powers, and the United Kingdom was freer to chart its future, but faces a world facing a deadly pandemic. and dealing with rising unemployment, rising divisions between owners and possessions and a climate crisis.
An article in the US-based World Politics Review in October identifies three visions for Britain’s future: ‘Catastrophists claiming the UK has become completely irrelevant on the international scene as a result of Brexit; the nostalgic, who see a mighty Britain through the lens of a great colonial power; and the deniers, who refuse to accept that Britain needs to adapt to a changing world context. ”
Authors Ben Judah, a British-French journalist and author, and Georgina Wright, a Brexit researcher at the Institute for Government, a British think tank, said that since Britain voted to leave the EU in 2016, it has unmistakable that both British leadership and influence on world affairs have suffered a blow. ”
“In international circles, it has become fashionable to reject Britain’s weight in world affairs too little,” they said. “Yet the country still carries weight.”
Woodward, who came to the UN after more than five years as ambassador to China and previously served in Russia, agrees.
“We have had a rather introspective three years with Brexit negotiations and the management of COVID,” she said, but with the forthcoming climate summit and the British presidency of the G-7 as the group struggled with the economic recovery from the pandemic , ‘I think we have quite a big role to play. ”
She said Prime Minister Boris Johnson was “very much focused on multilateralism.” When Britain left the EU on 31 December, he said that the UK was now ‘free to conduct trade transactions around the world and turbocharging our ambition to be a scientific superpower’.
Earlier this month, the Economist magazine said the UK had the opportunity to cut a bit on the world stage, with its G-7 presidency – including possible invitations to Australia, India and South Korea for the group’s sessions to attend – and host the Glasgow Climate Summit, ‘the most important diplomatic event of the year’.
Johnson is expected to visit India and be the guest of honor of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Republic Day on January 26, “a part of a much-coveted ‘slope to the Indo-Pacific’, the Economist said, adding that Britain also opened has discussions to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership with 11 countries and insists on becoming a ‘dialogue partner’ of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
Woodward said Britain’s exit from the EU made the seat of the United Nations and Britain’s Permanent Security Council “more important because the UN has always been the largest multilateral forum.”
She pointed to Sunday’s hybrid commemoration of the first meeting of the United Nations General Assembly 75 years ago in London hosted by Britain, and said that the world today is very different “but so many of the divisions are perhaps even deeper.”
Woodward said three important issues need to be addressed in the coming year:
– Vaccinate rich and poor people everywhere against the coronavirus and take action to revive economies devastated by the pandemic.
Climate change must be a top priority, with a focus on preventing temperature rises, and raising the billions needed to make progress;
—Dealing with a range of global security issues.
Woodward said Iran would be a key security issue regardless of whether US President Joseph Biden continues with his tendency to rejoin the 2015 nuclear deal that President Donald Trump withdrew. She cites the Iranian role in other conflicts, including in Yemen and Syria.
There are also security issues elsewhere in the Middle East and in Africa, where terrorist attacks in the Sahel are particularly worrying, as well as security issues surrounding the protection of digital data.
‘I think the relations that the new (US) government decides to have with all its allies – European partners, NATO allies, how it builds a relationship with China, will be critical, as well as how we work together in the UN . Security Council, “said Woodward.