Letter: Why we need Robin Cook
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Your support makes all the difference.Sir: It is for others to judge the merits of Steve Crawshaw's opinion of me ("Do we need Robin Cook?", 22 July), but I do need to put right some of his alleged facts.
First, I am accused of confusing Nigeria with Niger. There was no such confusion. The decision on extending sanctions against Nigeria was before ECOFIN in the week of that broadcast, and I was right both in fact and in principle in calling on the Government to support the continuance of sanctions.
Second, I am accused of not understanding the importance of qualified majority voting (QMV) for Europe. This is hard to reconcile with Labour's published policy documents which set out at great length our detailed position on the case for widening the use of QMV in Europe. I freely admit, though, that I have repeatedly stressed that we will only restore public support for the European project if we lift the European debate above the details of institutional reform and focus it on issues of concern to the public, such as jobs, the environment, and peace.
Third, I am accused of opposing tough action against those responsible for prosecuting the war in Bosnia. Steve Crawshaw has obviously never listened to any of my many speeches on Bosnia, in which I repeatedly urged that the military defence of the safe havens should be made a reality, and in which I consistently demanded that those responsible for atrocities should be brought before the War Crimes Tribunal.
Fourth, it is alleged that "friends of Mr Cook" believe that concerns over the future of the rule of law in Hong Kong are "bourgeois crap". This is pure invention. Neither I nor any friend of mine believes any such thing. My own concerns about the future of legal and democratic rights in Hong Kong were set out recently and at length in the Independent.
Finally, I am set as a test of my principles whether I will support sanctions against Burma. It is a question that we have already answered unequivocally. Labour has already demanded that the Government votes in the European Union for sanctions against the brutal military regime in power in Burma, and would ourselves vote for sanctions if we represented Britain.
Mr Crawshaw's unprovoked assault and battery is all the more depressing as I am only too conscious that there is room for legitimate question about the nature of debate on foreign policy in Britain, and the responsibility for its faults of those of us who conduct it. For instance, try as I might, it is difficult to avoid the agenda being set by responses to crises rather than analysis of strategic trends. I personally am particularly concerned at the neglect of global environmental issues which ought to play a much larger role in international relations.
ROBIN COOK MP
(Livingston, Lab)
House of Commons
London SW1
The writer is Labour spokesman for foreign affairs
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