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  • From: "Toni Hawryluk" <tonihawr AT msn.com>
  • To: "Homestead mailing list" <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Homestead] investigating for impeachment
  • Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 23:36:25 -0800


>
> http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=586445<http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=586445>


MPs attempt to impeach Blair over Iraq

The Independent Online Edition

By Ben Russell, Political Correspondent

25 November 2004

Tony Blair has become the first prime minister in nearly 200 years to face a
formal attempt at impeachment.

A group of MPs tabled a little-used motion yesterday to trigger an
investigation into claims that he was guilty of "gross misconduct" in the
run-up to war in Iraq.

Celebrities critical of the war joined 23 MPs to call for Mr Blair's
impeachment in a motion calling for a special committee to investigate his
claims in the months before the invasion. The authors Frederick Forsyth and
Iain Banks, the actors Susan Wooldridge, Andy de la Tour and Corin Redgrave
and the musician Brian Eno visited the House of Commons to show their
support, along with Reg and Sally Keys, whose son Thomas, 20, a soldier, died
in Iraq last year.

Campaigners hope to secure a Commons debate on impeachment, putting Mr
Blair's claims about Saddam Hussein's weaponry and the threat he posed under
further scrutiny.

Signatories to the motion include the former Tory frontbencher Boris Johnson,
the former Tory ministers Douglas Hogg and John Gummer, Plaid Cymru's
parliamentary leader, Elfyn Llwyd, Paul Marsden, who defected from Labour to
the Liberal Democrats, and the Respect MP George Galloway, who was expelled
from the Labour Party for his comments on Iraq. No Labour backbenchers have
signed the motion despite claims by campaigners that several have privately
expressed their support.

Alex Salmond, leader of the Scottish National Party and one of the
signatories, said he was optimistic that the Speaker, Michael Martin, would
grant a debate. "This is no gimmick," he said. "No speaker in history has
turned down a motion on impeachment for debate. My estimation is that, given
there are 23 names on the order paper, it will depend entirely on the breadth
and substance of support. The Speaker is an extremely fair man and I have got
every confidence in his ability to judge that."

Another backer of the motion, Roger Gale, Tory MP for Thanet North, said: "I
doubt there's a single person here that doesn't accept that Parliament was
misled, that the House was told there were weapons of mass destruction when
there were not and that the UK was 45 minutes from doom when it was not. What
the committee must establish is whether the Prime Minister knew those things
were false when he told the House of Commons."

A source said: "If we had said in August that we would have an impeachment
motion on the order paper, people would have laughed. It's there now and has
been ruled to be in order. Whatever the Speaker decides it will be
constitutionally important."



  • [Homestead] investigating for impeachment, Toni Hawryluk, 11/27/2004

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