Dear Peter

Thank you for your letter of 14 September.  I do not agree that my speeches and writing are detrimental to the Labour Party.  They are critical of the Government which is in my view dishonouring the Labour Party and undermining its electoral support.

Your letter is the latest in a series of threats that have been made to me since I resigned from the Government over the Iraq war and its aftermath.  The statement I made to the House of Commons when I resigned was critical of the Government. 

Shortly afterwards, I was asked to comment on the decision to drop the charges against Catherine Gunn for revealing the plans to bug the offices of the non permanent members of the Security Council.  I said then that such behaviour was less surprising than might be thought because we were also engaged in spying on Kofi Annan’s office.  This led to a threat to expel me from the Privy Council, charge me under the Official Secrets Act and a summons from the Chief Whip, all played out through the media.  When I met with the Chief Whip, who was then Hilary Armstrong, she said that I must cease to criticise the Prime Minister and accuse him of deceit over the Iraq war.  I told her that I could not do this because it was factually the case that he had engaged in deceit and I had already made a speech to this effect in the House of Commons.  We then agreed a form of words that she put into a letter to me, but of course, spun a little differently to the press.

My conclusion at this point was that such efforts were intended to prevent me speaking about the disastrous errors over Iraq and the seriousness of the deceit the Prime Minister had engaged in.  I spoke with other critical MPs who feared that disciplinary action might be taken to prevent them standing as Labour candidates.  The threats were perceived as an attempt to muzzle MPs who were critical of the Government.

I therefore decided to write a book explaining my views.  This contains my full analysis of the way in which New Labour has gone wrong in foreign policy and other matters.  As you will see, it fully explains my view of the growing distortions in our electoral system and the poor governance, arrogance and error that results from the concentration of power in No 10.  I strongly support the case for electoral reform which you will recall was a manifesto commitment in 1997 which has not been honoured.  I received no complaints or threats following the publication of my book.

Then on 27 May 2006, I spoke at a meeting organised by Greenpeace at the Hay literary festival on the proposal to replace Trident.  My view is that to do so would continue to lock us into the errors of the special relationship and would encourage proliferation.  The meeting was attended by more than 800 people and was very supportive of my point of view.

During the question and answer session, someone quoted John Reid’s statement that the UK would have nuclear weapons as long as anyone did and said therefore whatever the public thought the decision had already been made.  I responded that it would take a long time to implement such a decision, there was a high likelihood that the next election would result in a hung parliament and then the decision could be re-examined.  Following this, I received a letter from the Chief Whip, to which your letter refers. 

Following this, I received the Party’s letter asking MPs if they wanted to stand again at the next election, and after a lot of thought I decided that I would not because of continuing attempts to prevent me from speaking truthfully and the inability of the Party to correct the errors of the Government.  Then at an academic seminar to discuss ten years of new Labour, I explained how badly our government systems were functioning with neither the House of Commons nor the Cabinet operating effectively and said that I had decided not to stand at the next election so that I could campaign for electoral reform.  I said that I thought this achievable because a hung parliament was likely.  Someone at the seminar then contacted the media and I therefore wrote an article for The Independent.

I remain strongly committed to the history and values of the Labour Party.  I am a committed Social Democrat.  I believe that New Labour has departed from those values which I will continue to uphold.  The threat to MPs in marginal seats is a result of the performance of the Government and not my advocacy of electoral reform.

Yours sincerely

Clare Short