UNITED NATIONS (AP) – The new British ambassador to the United Nations says the government feels “gung ho” for continuing its role as a major player on the world stage despite its exit from the European Union.
Barbara Woodward pointed to the UK’s permanent seat on the powerful UN Security Council, its presidency this year of the Group of Seven Great Industrialized Nations, its membership in the group of the top 20 economic powers and NATO and the headquarters of the next United Nations. World Climate Summit in Glasgow, Scotland, in November.
“Don’t underestimate the power of the relationship with the EU,” he stressed in an interview with The Associated Press last week. “There are many values and principles that we share with European partners that I think will keep us in a good place.”
Britain’s long and sometimes disputed conflict with the EU became final on 31 December, a split that left the 27-member bloc without one of its main economic powers and the UK freest to tracing their future, but facing a world trying to face a deadly pandemic. and tackling rising unemployment, growing divisions between the poor and the poor, and a climate crisis.
An article in the United States-based World Politics Review in October identified three views on Britain’s future: “The catastrophes that argue that the UK has become completely irrelevant on the international stage as consequence of Brexit; the nostalgic, who see a powerful Britain through the goal of a great colonial power; and the deniers, who refuse to accept that Britain must adapt to a changing global context. “
Authors Ben Judah, a British-French journalist and author, and Georgina Wright, a Brexit researcher at the Institute for Government, a UK think tank, said that since Britain voted to leave the EU in 2016, “ it is undeniable that both British leadership and influence on global affairs have been successful. “
“In international circles, it has become fashionable to overly disregard Britain’s weight in world affairs,” they said. “Still, the country is still heavy.”
Woodward, who came to the UN after more than five years as ambassador to China and previously served in Russia, agrees.
“We have had three very introspective years with the negotiations on Brexit and the management of COVID,” he said, but with the next summit on climate and the British presidency of the G-7 as the group faces economic recovery. the pandemic. I have a very important role to play ”.
He said Prime Minister Boris Johnson is “very interested in multilateralism.” On 31 December, when Britain left the EU, he said the UK was now “free to make trade deals around the world and free to turbo-feed our ambition to be a scientific superpower”.
Earlier this month, Economist magazine said the UK has a chance to “slow down the world scene” with its G-7 presidency, including possible invitations to Australia, India and South Korea to attend group sessions. organizing the climate summit in Glasgow, “the most important diplomatic event of the year”.
Johnson is expected to visit India and be Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s guest of honor on Republic Day on Jan. 26, “part of a very steep” incline toward the Indo-Pacific, “he said. economist, and added that Britain has also opened discussions to join the Trans-Pacific Association of 11 nations and is pushing to become a “dialogue partner” of the Association of Southeast Nations Asian.
Woodward said the UK’s exit from the EU makes the permanent seat of the UN Security Council and the UK “more important because the UN has always been the largest multilateral forum”.
He noted Sunday’s hybrid commemoration of the first meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in London 75 years ago, which hosts Britain, and said the world is very different today, ”but many of the divisions maybe they are even deeper now. “
Next year, Woodward said, there are three major issues that need to be addressed:
—Vaccinate rich and poor people everywhere against the coronavirus and take steps to revive the economies devastated by the pandemic.
—Provide climate change as a top priority, focusing on preventing temperature rises and increasing the billions needed to move forward;
—Faced a number of global security issues.
Woodward said Iran will be a central security issue, whether or not U.S. President-elect Joseph Biden passes with his inclination to rejoin the 2015 nuclear deal that President Donald Trump took it out. He cited Iran’s role in other conflicts, including Yemen and Syria.
There are also security issues elsewhere in the Middle East and Africa, where terrorist attacks in the Sahel are of particular concern, as well as security issues over the protection of digital data.
“I believe that the relations that the new administration (of the United States) decides to have with all its allies: European partners, NATO allies, how to build a relationship with China, will be critical, as well as the way to work together at the UN. Security Council, “Woodward said.