Open main menu
Home
Random
Recent changes
Special pages
Community portal
Preferences
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
Incubator escapee wiki
Search
User menu
Talk
Dark mode
Contributions
Create account
Log in
Editing
Robin Cook
(section)
Warning:
You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you
log in
or
create an account
, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.
Anti-spam check. Do
not
fill this in!
==Early years in Parliament== Cook unsuccessfully contested the [[Edinburgh North (UK Parliament constituency)|Edinburgh North]] constituency at the [[1970 United Kingdom general election|1970 general election]], but was elected to the [[House of Commons of the United Kingdom|House of Commons]] at the [[February 1974 United Kingdom general election|February 1974 general election]] as Member of Parliament for [[Edinburgh Central (UK Parliament constituency)|Edinburgh Central]], defeating [[George Foulkes, Baron Foulkes of Cumnock|George Foulkes]] for nomination. In 1981, Cook was a member of the anti-nuclear [[Labour Party Defence Study Group]].<ref name="Vickers2011b">{{cite book|author=Rhiannon Vickers|title=The Labour Party and the World β Volume 2: Labour's Foreign Policy since 1951|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PC_YCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT156|date= 2011|publisher=Manchester University Press|isbn=978-1-84779-595-3|page=156}}</ref> When the constituency boundaries were revised for the [[1983 United Kingdom general election|1983 general election]], he transferred to the new [[Livingston (UK Parliament constituency)|Livingston]] constituency after [[Tony Benn]] declined to run for the seat. Cook represented Livingston until his death. In parliament, Cook joined the left-wing [[Tribune (magazine)|Tribune Group]] of the [[Parliamentary Labour Party]] and frequently opposed the policies of the Wilson and Callaghan governments. He was an early supporter of constitutional and [[electoral reform]] (he opposed [[devolution]] in the 1979 referendum but came out in favour on election night in 1983) and of efforts to increase the number of female MPs.{{citation needed|date=August 2020}} In May 2005, one month before he died, Cook said: "My nightmare is that we will have been 12 years in office, with the ability to reform the electoral system, and will fail to do so until we are back in opposition, in perhaps a decade of Conservative government, regretting that we left in place the electoral system that allowed Conservative governments on a minority vote."<ref>{{cite web |last=Ward |first=David |date=1 March 2023 |title=Labour, don't repeat your mistakes: promise fairer elections |url=https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/proportional-representation-electoral-reform-labour-tony-blair-john-smith-charter-88/ |access-date=22 August 2023 |website=openDemocracy}}</ref> Cook supported unilateral [[nuclear disarmament]] and the abandoning of the Labour Party's [[euroscepticism]] of the 1970s and 1980s.{{citation needed|date=August 2020}} During his early years in parliament, Cook championed several liberalising social measures, to mixed effect. He repeatedly (and unsuccessfully) introduced a private member's bill on divorce reform in Scotland, but succeeded in July 1980{{snd}}and after three years' trying{{snd}}with an amendment to bring the Scottish law on homosexuality into line with that in England.{{citation needed|date=August 2020}} After Labour were defeated at the general election in May 1979, Cook supported [[Michael Foot]]'s leadership bid and joined his campaign committee. When Tony Benn challenged [[Denis Healey]] for the party's deputy leadership in September 1981, Cook supported Healey.<ref name=mw>{{cite news|title=Michael White's politicians of the decade: Robin Cook|url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/2009/dec/27/michael-white-politicians-decade-robin-cook|author=Michael White|work=The Guardian|date=26 December 2009|access-date=13 June 2014|archive-date=26 August 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140826125055/http://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/2009/dec/27/michael-white-politicians-decade-robin-cook|url-status=live|author-link=Michael White (journalist)}}</ref>
Edit summary
(Briefly describe your changes)
By publishing changes, you agree to the
Terms of Use
, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the
CC BY-SA 4.0 License
and the
GFDL
. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license.
Cancel
Editing help
(opens in new window)