Jack Straw: 10 things to remember about Labour’s longest serving cabinet minister

Earlier we brought you the news that Jack Straw will be standing down as MP for Blackburn in 2015. For some in the party his legacy will be remembered for his role in the Iraq war, but such a blinkered view would be only a partial recollection of a career that has spanned decades at the top of the Labour Party. It’s important to remember much more of what Straw achieved as Labour’s longest serving Cabinet Minister (from first day to last of Labour’s 13 years in government) – here are 10 key things to remember about Straw’s time as an MP before it draws to a close:

1. During the early 1980s Jack Straw, then a constituency MP for Blackburn, took a lead in fighting Militant – and removing them from the Labour movement. Straw has since described their attempted takeover of the party as “fundamentally self-defeating”.
2. In the early 1990s, as the Labour Party went through profound internal change, Straw was at the forefront. In his memoirs Jack recalls the obstacles he faced in his personal campaign to change Clause IV – a controversial but important change subsequently adopted by Tony Blair after becoming party leader.
3. While still hotly debated Jack Straw’s introduction of the Human Rights Act in 1998 was without question a central constitutional reform of the New Labour government. For better or for worse the reform has been central to a fundamental shift in political debate, with a far greater emphasis now on the rights of individuals.
4. Criticised by some for his perceived ‘authoritarian’ approach, Straw introduced legislation (including the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act) which brought about pioneering reforms on crime, including partnerships with local communities and a new youth justice system. Labour halved the rate of crime from 1997-2010, and Straw played a big part in that.
5. Following the landslide victory of 1997 Jack Straw, as Home Secretary, took the courageous decision to set up an inquiry – what became the Macpherson  Inquiry – into the murder of Stephen Lawrence and the police investigation that resulted from it. Subsequent years have shown the groundbreaking nature of Macpherson’s report, which called the Met “institutionally racist”.
6. Motivated by the harrowing experience of the suicide of a schoolmate in 1963, Jack Straw pushed very strongly to bring about the landmark legislation in 2001 which equalised the age of consent for gay people.
7. Jack Straw, along with Tony Blair and his Cabinet colleagues, carries the responsibility for the controversial – and in my view wrong – decision to go to war with Iraq. What is clear though, particularly from sections of his book and his evidence to the Iraq Inquiry, is that his extremely close relationship with his US counterpart, Colin Powell, was instrumental in the US deciding not to take military action alone and to go down the UN route and subsequently, therefore, in obtaining Resolution 1441 by unanimous vote.
8. After the polarisation of the international community over Iraq, Jack Straw was central, as Foreign Secretary, in working with his French and German counterparts to create the so-called ‘E3’ formation. The E3 began negotiations with Iran on its nuclear dossier in 2003 and came tantalisingly close to reaching agreement. If any agreement is reached in future – it may well be built on the foundations that Straw built.
9. As a Minister Jack Straw played a central role in making government more open. While he was responsible for the introduction of the controversial – but now essential – Freedom of Information Act, he also campaigned, successfully, to put the Office for National Statistics on an independent footing.
10. Whatever else his critics may say of him, Jack Straw is undoubtedly a ‘House of Commons’ man’. His respect and attention to the chamber and his colleagues has led to a number of reforms to empower Parliament in order to better hold government to account. Just one example of his approach can be seen during the Coroners Bill in November 2009 when Straw, as Justice Secretary, put his name to an opposition amendment in order to ensure that, despite opposing it, the amendment would at least be subject to a formal division of the House.

I also wrote about Straw when he stepped down from the front bench three years ago. As I said then – “It’s the right time for him to go – but let’s not pretend he won’t be missed.”