LONDON, 7 August 2005 — Former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, who quit Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Cabinet in opposition to the Iraq war, has died, Scottish police announced yesterday. Northern Constabulary said Cook, 59, died after collapsing on Ben Stack mountain in the Scottish Highlands while walking with his wife. He was taken by Coast Guard helicopter to a hospital in Inverness, where he was pronounced dead. Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, who is filling in for a vacationing Blair, was due to make a statement later yesterday.
Jack Straw, Cook’s successor as foreign secretary, said he was “devastated.”
“Robin and I had been good friends for nearly 30 years and that friendship survived our policy disagreements over Iraq,” Straw said. “He was the greatest parliamentarian of his generation and a very fine foreign secretary. I deeply mourn his loss.” Cook served as foreign secretary from 1997 to 2001 before being demoted to leader of the House of Commons. His resignation speech, days before war began in March 2003, received a rare standing ovation from lawmakers.
In it he asked: “Why is it now so urgent that we should take military action to disarm a military capacity that has been there for 20 years, and which we helped to create?”
Renowned as an intelligent lawmaker and skilled debater, Cook remained a high-profile figure despite his withdrawal from government and became an increasingly vocal opponent of Blair’s policies. Some supporters believed that Cook should have been leader of the Labour Party. But opponents saw him as arrogant and distant. A lawmaker since 1974, Cook — a short and bearded redhead — declined to stand in opposition to Tony Blair when he was elected Labour leader in 1994, declaring: “I am not good-looking enough.”
Instead, Cook accepted the post of foreign secretary following the landslide election victory that made Blair prime minister in 1997.
But his promise of an “ethical dimension” to British foreign policy often came back to haunt him, particularly after he sanctioned the sale of 16 Hawk jet fighters to Indonesia in 1999, despite the country’s widely criticized human rights record in East Timor.
Another diplomatic miscalculation came during a trip to India and Pakistan when he suggested that Britain could mediate any negotiations over the disputed territory of Kashmir. The remark irritated both countries.
Cook was praised by many for his tough-minded handling of the 1999 Kosovo crisis, but that and other successes were partly overshadowed by the scandal of ending his 28-year marriage to his wife Margaret at an airport as they were about to leave on vacation.
An ally of Treasury chief Gordon Brown, Cook had been tipped to return to Cabinet should Brown succeed Blair as Labour leader, as many predict.
