Following similar pitches from French President Emmanuel Macron and US President Joe Biden, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer supported India’s application on Thursday for permanent membership in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Mr. Starmer stated that the UNSC has to transform into a “more representative body” when speaking during the general debate of the assembly’s seventy-ninth session in New York.
Currently, the General Assembly of the United Nations elects 10 non-permanent members for two-year terms, while there are five permanent members of the UNSC. Russia, the United States, China, France, and the United Kingdom are the five permanent members, and they each have the authority to veto any significant resolution.
“We want to see permanent African representation on the Council, Brazil, India, Japan, and Germany as permanent members, and more seats for elected members as well,” added Mr. Starmer.
Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, had also expressed his strong support for India’s admittance as a permanent member of the UNSC earlier on Wednesday.
“As long as we have a Security Council that is blocked, I would say, reciprocally according to the interests of each party, we will have difficulty moving forward. So let’s just make these United Nations more effective, first by perhaps making them more representative. That is why France, and I repeat here, is in favor of the Security Council being expanded,” he said at the UN General Assembly.
“Germany, Japan, India, and Brazil should be permanent members, as well as two countries that Africa will decide to represent it,” he further added.
India has long maintained that it is deserving of a seat on the UN Security Council. According to New Delhi, the fifteen-nation council that was established in 1945 is out of date and does not adequately represent the geopolitical landscape of the twenty-first century.
India’s last term as a non-permanent member at the UN High Table was 2021–2022.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also issued a warning at the ‘Summit of the Future’ on Sunday, stating that the 15-nation UNSC, which he called “outdated” and whose authority is diminishing, will eventually lose all credibility unless its membership and operational procedures are changed.