United Nations should be reformed to ‘address global challenges ahead’, says Foreign Secretary

António Guterres, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, pictured at a meeting this week.

Credit: Bebeto Matthews/AP Photo

Mr Raab added: “The world needs the UN. And on this anniversary we should remember it, and commit to strengthening multilateralism for the next 75 years.”

The Foreign Secretary’s comments come after a speech by Boris Johnson to the UN general assembly last month, in which he said the world’s battle against coronavirus had left the “very notion of the international community… pretty tattered”. 

“We know that we simply can’t continue in this way,” Mr Johnson said.

The Prime Minister called for the formation of an “early warning system” to help the World Health Organisation, a UN body, to respond to future pandemics.

The Conservative Party has called for the UN to focus on its “core functions of peacekeeping, conflict prevention and resolution”.

To mark the UN’s anniversary, Royal Mail has stamped all mail since Wednesday with a commemorative postmark. 

A team of Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office historians will tomorrow release a blog detailing the UK’s history of international collaboration through the UN.