Britain Should Leave the United Nations

Much talk these days is made of Britain leaving the EU. But what of other bodies that violate Parliamentary Sovereignty? What about, for example, the United Nations?The EU, is made of 28 member states, most of whom could broadly be described as liberal democracies . The UN is made of 167 non-micro states, 88 of whom The Economist would describe as “Hybrid regimes” or “Authoritarian regimes”. Only 25 are full democracies. When dictatorships have a say on the policy of Great Britain, one should not be surprised when the results are bad. Britain, if serious about Parliamentary Sovereignty and democracy, should leave the UN.To be clear, such a move would likely mean the entire UN would disband. Unless there were major consequences imposed upon our country, the world would remember that membership of the UN is voluntary and thus nations are free to leave at any point in time. And what would the world really lose? Peace has been maintained primarily by two forces over the last 70 years:1) Democracy- Democracies are less likely to go to war than Autocracies.2) Free Trade- Building trade relations between countries means going to war with other countries is extremely expensive in terms of lost trade.The UN facilitates neither and discourages both. By passing numerous binding resolutions- often against democratically elected governments such as Israel, it violates the principle that National Parliaments are sovereign and furthers the neoconservative delusion that imperfect countries can be perfected through the “General will” of other countries, many of whom are far less democratic than Israel.The UN also implements trade sanctions. The UN claims that this is peaceful, but aside from economic damage- we should also learn from Otto Mallery (Not Bastiat) who said “When goods do not cross borders, armies will”. Iraq makes a good example. On August 6th 1990 the UN approved trade sanctions against Iraq which lasted until 2003.These sanctions resulted in the deaths of over 576,000 children, and agitated Iraq further into isolation and radicalism. Mallery‘s lesson was proven when the US and UK invaded Iraq in 2003. This was not only an example of the UN failing to secure peace- it was an example of the UN actively discouraging it.Membership of this organization is at best useless and at worst malign- it is time Britain set an example and left.This piece was originally published at the Adam Smith Institute here as part of an essay competition.

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