MP's move to impeach Tony Blair

[Vanhalen 0]

LOL It would be funny as fuck if they actually managed to pull this off

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4037375.stm

 

 

MPs call for Blair's impeachment 

 

Tony Blair is accused of 'destroying parliamentary democracy'

 

Harold Pinter and author Iain Banks are to join MPs at Westminster to call for Tony Blair's impeachment over Iraq.

 

Twenty-three members have signed a Commons motion calling for the prime minister to be thrown from office.

 

They say he misled Parliament over the case for invading Iraq and want a probe by MPs to examine his conduct in relation to the war.

 

But the impeachment bid is widely expected to fail and probably will not even be debated in the Commons.

 

Downing Street says Tony Blair has already been cleared by four separate inquiries into the pre-war intelligence on Iraq.

 

'Serious breach'

 

The last attempted impeachment was of Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston back in 1848.

 

The MPs are mainly Conservatives including Boris Johnson and former ministers John Gummer and Douglas Hogg.

 

Liberal Democrats, Scottish Nationalists and MPs from Plaid Cymru have also signed the motion.

 

The allegation against the prime minister is that in making the case against Iraq he was guilty of a serious breach of constitutional principles.

 

It says he has destroyed "the fundamental principle of parliamentary democracy" and wants a committee to decide whether there are grounds to impeach him on misconduct charges.

 

'Rules dismissed'

 

Plaid Cymru's Adam Price, who started the campaign, also wants a Commons debate on Mr Blair's conduct.

 

"We must make a stand or watch the democracy we have fought so often for against foreign enemies be subverted from within," he said.

 

"The rules of constitutional conduct had been brushed aside.

 

"People say politicians do nothing and are all alike but today we make a stand for parliamentary democracy," he added.

 

War powers

 

Officially the Conservative and Liberal Democrats are not supporting the motion.

 

Donald Anderson, the Labour Swansea East MP and chairman of the Commons foreign affairs committee, has dismissed the plan as a "no-hoper" and a "political stunt".

 

In a separate move, the Liberal Democrats are calling for a fresh look at the prime minister's power to take the country to war without a vote of MPs.

 

Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy is tabling a House of Commons motion calling for a special select committee to be established to examine the issue.

 

The government did put the decision to go to war in Iraq to a vote in Parliament, but was under no obligation to do so.

[The Czech Republic 0]

How does Gordon Brown figure into this? I know he's not exactly on the same page as Mr Blair.

[Vanhalen 0]

Well believe it or not, theres been enough votes passed to merit a debate and a vote on impeachment tonight, so tony blair could be out on his ear in several hours time

[Vanhalen 0]

A bit more on it

 

London - A draft of a parliamentary motion to impeach British Prime Minister Tony Blair accuses him of "gross misconduct" over the US-led invasion of Iraq, a newspaper said on Sunday.

 

The Independent on Sunday said it had obtained the text of the motion from a cross-party group of MPs, adding it would be offered for debate soon after the new parliamentary session begins later this month.

 

The motion calls for a select committee to investigate the "conduct of the PM in relation to the war in Iraq," the daily said.

 

The committee would draw up the "articles of impeachment" and a panel of law lords would judge whether Blair deliberately misled the nation into waging an unlawful war, it said.

 

A guilty verdict would see Blair arrested by parliament's Sergeant at Arms.

 

Michael Martin, the speaker in the House of Commons, must rule on whether the motion can be proposed for debate on the floor of the house.

 

The newspaper said that although Blair had little chance of losing an impeachment vote, the very fact it was held would represent a serious humiliation.

 

War was 'unlawful'

 

Downing Street has ordered officials to compile a case against the motion on the grounds it is obsolete.

 

Adam Pryce, the Welsh nationalist Plaid Cymru MP who began the campaign to impeach Blair, said he hoped 30 to 50 members of parliament would support the motion, according to the Independent. So far 23 have signed up.

 

The text calls for a committee to investigate and report to the house on Blair's conduct regarding the war and to consider the following:

 

 

the conclusions of the US Iraq Survey Group which reported that in March 2003, when the invasion was launched, Iraq did not possess weapons of mass destruction and had been essentially free of them since the mid-1990s.

the opinion of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan that the war was unlawful.

"whether there exist sufficient grounds to impeach... Blair on charges of gross misconduct in his advocacy of the case for war against Iraq and in his conduct of policy in connection with that war."

[Anorak 0]

Exiting stuff.

[BX 0]

Exactly. Exiting now.

[Guest SP-1]

Excellent. My theory that no good deed goes unpunished is reaffirmed.

[Jobber of the Week 0]

One of those afterthought parties that people vote for just to show how angry they are at the LibDems really needs to step up and start saying things that resonate with the majority voter, because otherwise they're missing out on the frustration and not capitalizing on it.

 

On the other hand, the British cannot afford to hand things over to the Tories again. Not after the last time it happened.

[Guest INXS]

He's never going to be impeached (at least not over the war) though it was a nice idea.