Robin Cook - 1 Year on without

Last year the world suffered a great loss. That of Robin Cook MP(February 28th 1946 - August 6th 2005) of the British Labour Party. He was a stern internationalist and anti-war activist. Not only did he work tirelessly for the British Labour Party to avoid the invasion of Iraq but he refused to allow his name be associated with the decision of Britain to invade Iraq and resigned from the cabinet in protest. In his resignation speech Robin highlighted why he believed the evidence for the invasion was false and received the only standing ovation for a speech in the House of Commons in history.

The Irish Labour Party has a great admiration for Robin Cook and I had the pleasure of attending the Irish Labour Party conference which he was invited to speak at in 2004 in Dublin.
Irish Labour have dedications on their site here for Robin Cook on the first anniversary of his passing on August 6th.

Below is an extract from Robin's resignation speech on St. Patrick's Day 2003:

"Ironically, it is only because Iraq's military forces are so weak that we can even contemplate its invasion. Some advocates of conflict claim that Saddam's forces are so weak, so demoralised and so badly equipped that the war will be over in a few days. We cannot base our military strategy on the assumption that Saddam is weak and at the same time justify pre-emptive action on the claim that he is a threat. Iraq probably has no weapons of mass destruction in the commonly understood sense of the term - namely a credible device capable of being delivered against a strategic city target. It probably still has biological toxins and battlefield chemical munitions, but it has had them since the 1980s when US companies sold Saddam anthrax agents and the then British Government approved chemical and munitions factories. 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? Why is it necessary to resort to war this week, while Saddam's ambition to complete his weapons programme is blocked by the presence of UN inspectors? "

I miss the integrity that Robin was championing in the British Labour Party and I feel a year on from his tragic death last year the voice of integrity and truth is lacking.

Please take a moment to remember Robin this Sunday and the loss that to the Internationalist/Labour/Social Democratic/Socialist/Anti-War movement has suffer with the loss of Robin Cook.

Labour Party of Ireland remember Robin Cook: http://www.labour.ie/campaigns/listing/20060727132311.html

Wikipedia Article on Robin Cook: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Cook