The decision by our International Development Minister to publicly state her desire to withdraw us from the United Nations agency UNESCO should raise all sorts of concerns amongst the nation that created UNESCO and which has benefited enormously from it during the time we have been a member. This statement has been made as we are apparently about to depart from the European Union which we also helped to create and which we have also benefited from enormously. UNESCO was formed in 1945 in London and its role was intended as an “organisation that would embody a genuine culture of peace”. We left it once before on 31st December 1985 at the same time as America and Singapore. When we rejoined in 1997 we did so six years ahead of the USA and they have not subscribed towards it since 2011 because it has allowed Palestine to be recognised as a state.

Penny Mordaunt who is one of the Cabinets strongest Brexit supporters is reiterating ideas expressed by her predecessor Priti Patel who is also a passionate advocate of Brexit. This idea for us to begin to remove ourselves from a key part of the UN will resonate with many thousands of people who believe that the UK is worth so much more than the rest of the world and we need to pick and choose who we have relationships with. If we align ourselves with America and Israel in their announced plans to depart from UNESCO this year we will strengthen our relationship with these two nations, just as we will weaken our relationship with most other nations across the world that see the UN as a vital place to be at work. One wonders how many nations that have questioned our place as one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council will see this call and possible follow through action as a credible basis for challenging our role. Of course if one of the five permanent seats on the UN Security Council was questioned, at least two others could also be questioned. No one would argue that China and the USA should be removed, but France, UK and Russia are all far less significant nations than was the case 3-4 decades ago. Once the Security Council begins to be dissected the whole of the UN is put at risk. Then of course there are prospects of the other International bodies that we are part of being destroyed. The USA has already threatened to pull out of NATO and so we may well follow if they do and one assumes that the WTO is another agency at risk and other agencies which are on the path down which we are now travelling.

Let us hope we have the guts as a nation to reject the views of Penny Mordaunt and Priti Patel along with their other compatriots and even reconsider our decision to leave the EU in the light of the risks that have been revealed since June 2016. Our own nation is threatened by such actions, let alone the rest of the world!