Labour pledges return to Robin Cook's 'ethical foreign policy'

The late foreign secretary pledged an ethical foreign policy 20 years ago today

Former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook delivers a speech at the year 2000 Labour Party Conference in Brighton (AFP/Getty Images)

Labour will re-adopt the "ethical foreign policy" of the late former foreign secretary Robin Cook, Emily Thornberry has said.

Writing in the Guardian newspaper the shadow foreign secretary said it was “not too late to do Robin’s legacy proud”.

“Like Robin, we will put human rights back at the heart of Britain’s foreign policy," she wrote.

Ms Thornberry was writing on the 20 year anniversary of Mr Cook delivering a speech to Foreign Office staff in which he pledged to “make Britain once again a force for good in the world”.

His programme included controls on arms sales and the promotion of human rights abroad.

Mr Cook, who resigned in opposition to the Iraq War and passed away in 2005, said in his 1997 address: “The Labour government does not accept that political values can be left behind when we check in our passports to travel on diplomatic business.

“Our foreign policy must have an ethical dimension and must support the demands of other peoples for the democratic rights on which we insist for ourselves.”

Later this morning Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is expected to speak at the Chatham House think-tank and lay out his foreign policy credentials.

He will claim to be "no pacifist" but declare that the “bomb first, talk later” approach to foreign policy has failed.

Hitting out at Theresa May’s foreign policy, Mr Corbyn will argue that “waiting to see which way the wind blows in Washington” is not a symptom of strong leadership and that “pandering to an erratic Trump administration will not deliver stability”.