Robin Cook made himself available to lead the non-Blairite left in UK parliament Sunday as he told questioners "I'm not going away" in his first interviews since his dramatic resignation from the cabinet over the war a week ago.
"I'm a [House of] Commons man, I'm going to carry on being in the Commons and I hope play a part as a senior figure in the Commons," he said. "There are a lot of issues that I would wish to address there ... I want to make sure that we continue to develop a radical, progressive agenda."
Cook was careful not to criticize British Prime Minister Tony Blair, praising the efforts he and UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw had made to secure a second resolution at the UN, but he did not offer direct support.
There had been speculation that Cook might be offered a lucrative European job. He became an enthusiastic Europhile during his time as foreign secretary and is currently president of the Party of European Socialists.
But he seems to have dismissed such plans for the immediate future, sounding confident that he has a future in British politics.
Cook said he had made up his mind that he would have to resign if Britain went to war without a fresh UN resolution while spending three days walking in Norfolk with his wife Gaynor.
It has emerged that Cook's resignation was carefully negotiated with Downing Street. His statement was delivered to the Commons the night before last Tuesday's critical debate on Iraq, when 139 Labour MPs rebelled, rather than during the debate itself when he might have swayed more backbenchers -- apparently in return for an agreement that there would be no top-level Downing Street briefing against him.
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