Blair faces new inquiry into Iraq war

Blair faces new inquiry into Iraq war
Impeachment campaigners claim former ministers will join 200 supporters
to force Commons probe
By James Cusick, Westminster Editor

MPs organising the campaign to impeach Tony Blair believe they have
enough support to force a highly damaging Commons investigation into the
Prime Minister’s pre-war conduct.

A renewed attempt to impeach Blair over claims he misled parlia ment in
making his case for war against Iraq, will be made in the Commons within
the next two weeks.

The impeachment process effectively stalled last year when just 23 MPs
signed a Commons motion. But the scale of the government’s defeat on its
anti-terror legislation last week – where 49 Labour MPs rebelled – has
galvanised the momentum for proceedings to be invoked.

Organisers say they are expecting 200 cross-party signatures, including
those of former government ministers, to force the Commons to set up a
Privy Council investigation that would examine in detail the case for
impeachment against Blair.

The size of the Labour revolt, allied to unified opposition benches, is
said to have changed the climate inside the Commons.

SNP leader, Alex Salmond, one of the key figures in the impeachment
campaign, said he now believed that the cross-party attempt to bring the
government to account over the Iraq war “would become more urgent than
predicted problems associated with social legislation in England and Wales”.

Following the Commons defeat, it was predicted that future flashpoints
for Blair would include a new education reform bill, likely to be
presented next spring and new legislation to broaden reform inside the
NHS with greater competition from the private sector.

Potential backbench revolts are also predicted if Blair makes any move
to update the Trident nuclear programme or tries to introduce a new era
of nuclear-generated energy.

Next month, a Green Paper on welfare reform, expected to include moves
to cut incapacity benefit, was expected to be the first attack point for
Labour dissidents.

However, any parliamentary success on the matter of impeachment is
likely to over-shadow other issues.

If the promised signatures materialise, and a vote on the impeachment
process is taken, the opportunity to deliver a substantial knock-down
blow to Blair is not likely to be passed up by Labour rebels and
opposition alike.

One MP last night: “This would be a golden opportunity. It would be
pay-back time for Blair over the way he manipulated parliament before
the Iraq war in 2003.

“Last week’s defeat changed the atmosphere in the Commons. The hunt is
on, as they say.”

Although the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, has remained publicly loyal to
Blair since the defeat, last night, one of Brown’s closest parliamentary
allies disobeyed his call to back the Prime Minister unquestioningly.

The former Treasury minister, Geoffrey Robinson, insisted the Prime
Minister had to allow his successor sufficient time to win a fourth
term. The comment effectively challenges Blair’s claim that he will
serve out a “full third term”.

Blair has acknowledged how difficult the task ahead of him now is. He
said in a newspaper interview this weekend that he now faced “a rough
ride” to push through his reform agenda. But he insisted there would be
no spectacular U-turn, saying he was still determined to “continue doing
what was right, not what is easy”.

An organiser of the impeachment campaign told the Sunday Herald : “We
have been promised 200 signatures and are now hopeful this process will
go ahead as it should have last year. There will be a vote and an
investigation will be set up. Does this have the potential to finish
Tony Blair? Yes it does.”