NEW YORK, SEPT 27 – The new British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer took to the international stage at the UN General Assembly for the first time with the message, “His country is returning to responsible global leadership,” yesterday.
The leader of the Labor Party, who won a landslide victory in last July’s election, told the gathering of world leaders that as prime minister, “the UK will lead again on addressing climate change domestically and internationally and restore our commitment to international development. “
Working with other countries, Starmer said, Britain will also deal with conflicts from Gaza and the West Bank to Ukraine and Sudan where a ceasefire is urgently needed. He said countries must also work together “to make the world less dangerous.”
“We have to face some hard truths. Peace institutions are struggling, underfunded, under pressure and out of politics,” the prime minister said.
He said the entire system of global arms control and the decades-long effort to combat arms buildup “has begun to collapse” and requires global action.
“We will also change the way the UK does things,” Starmer said. “Moving from the paternalism of the past to a partnership for the future that is more listening, less talking.”
He said the UK would also offer other countries “British expertise that will change everything,” and would work with countries “in a spirit of mutual respect.”
Starmer also told ministers and diplomats that “a sense of fatalism has set in” in an age people described as polarized and full of impunity and unstable.
“So, our job is to say: No. We will not accept that the situation continues to plunge into greater and greater conflict, instability and injustice. On the contrary, we will do everything we can to change it,” he stressed. – AP
