This has been rumbling on for a while now. It transpires that a British PM can be impeached (the American system is apparently copied from us).
A Plaid Cymru (Welsh Nationalist) MP together with some SNP MPs and a few Tories (including the marvellous Boris) are campaigning for him to be impeached.
The reason for this is that Blair lied to he country about WMD and the threat posed to the UK by Iraq/Saddam.
There is no question that Blair was wrong about WMDs in Iraq – but that’s not at issue, what’s at issue is whether he knowingly lied about them.
(FWIW I think Blair wasn’t lying – I just think he’s incompetent, but that doesn’t seem to be an impeachable offence.)
So a couple of points….
Firstly is it a good thing to have this mechanism available to Parliament? Particularly given that it hasn’t been used in over 150 years?
Secondly – does Blair have a case to answer? If so, should he face impeachment?
Well, isn’t the impetus on the accusers to prove that Blair knowingly lied? I think the voters should decide his fate rather than a few MPs with an agenda. When is the next election anyway?
A brief look at the relevant pdf reveals rather a lot of avoidance of the usual parliamentary checks and balances (which, of course, they say is justified because Parliament itself has failed). And it would take years of research and millions of pounds - I’d suggest letting democracy run its course. He’s surely only got a couple of years left in him.
But, purely in principle, I’d like to see it. I’ll sign up to impeachblair.org after you’ve joined me in signing up for impalethatcher.org. Deal?
I vote for crafting a statue of Blair which we can all smash the head off of. The national outpouring of goodwill towards the bloke who did this was worth a hundred impeachments.
It should be noted that unlike Bush Blair only used WMD’s and impending attacks from them to push the war.
He did not talk about regime change in fact said that if the WMD’s issue was resolved Saddam could stay in power. This was window dressing IMO as the decision was made to go to war by the US Admin and Blair decided it was best for the UK to go along with them.
As per Woodward’s book “Plan of Attack” from White House transcripts Blair guaranteed troops well before any vote. He needed the war vote to be passed and so took the intelligence reports and spun them. He also said that the UK would only go in with UN backing.
The 45 minute claim was made about field weapons but the government spun this to make the populace and MP’s believe that it was ballistic missiles and the UK itself was in danger.
If British I would have been a Blair supporter. IMO he should go but I’d still vote Labour if he was gone.
I remember I once heard a Brit say of Watergate, that nothing like the long, dragged-out investigation process, leading ultimately to talk of impeachment, ever could have happened in the UK, because of the parliamentary system. As soon as the scandal broke, either P.M. Nixon would have immediately resigned on his own initiative and scheduled new elections, as P.M.'s simply do in such situations; or the Commons would have taken a vote of no confidence and scheduled new elections. In other words, Parliament has options available to it that are much easier, faster and more efficient than impeachment, and these would be used before impeachment ever was thought of.
So if there’s a realistic prospect Blair might be impeached – why is he still P.M.?
You said the remedy of impeachment has not been used in Britain for 150 years. Can you fill us in on the history of that?
Did rather. At the time of Nixon, I think this would have happened. Not so these days.
Labour has got such a majority that this just wouldn’t happen.
Instead today, we get: “The problem is I can apologise for the information being wrong but I can never apologise, sincerely at least, for removing Saddam. The world is a better place with Saddam in prison.”
In other words “I may have been lying or grossly incompetent, but Saddam’s in jail! Aren’t I great?!”
Of course he did. By any common, decent, honest definition of the word ‘lie’ he strung the whole country along good and proper. Lied by omission, lied by misdirection and downright said things that he knew not to be true.
So far as I can find, this site does not explain the procedure for impeaching a P.M. under British law. How does this work? As jjimm pointed out, Labour’s solid majority in the Commons rules out a successful vote of no confidence. Why does it not rule out an impeachment? Can impeachment go through if only a minority of the House supports it? I presume it is a parliamentary, rather than a judicial proceeding.
In the U.S., the president must be impeached (more or less the same thing as indicted) by the House of Representatives, then tried by the Senate, which can convict and depose him, or not. In 1998 the House impeached Clinton, but the November elections returned a Democrat majority in the Senate, and they acquitted him.
So according to this, the process would have to be brought up to date slightly, and the Commons would have to pass the motion (not sure of the validity of the cite, unfortunately).
There are some details here and here. The last attempt was against Palmerston in 1848, which failed. Since all the impeachments since the most famous in British history - that of Warren Hastings, who was aquitted - had failed in fiascos of varying degrees, the obvious interpretation is that the procedure fell into disrepute as ineffective and embarrassing in practice. One suspects that any attempt against Blair (or any other modern PM) will go the same way.
Given that Labour has such a solid majority in the Commons, and given the strength of party disipline in the Labour Party, it would seem more likely that Labour MPs unhappy with Blair would move against him in the party caucus. If he lost a vote there, Blair would have to resign. The problem may that there is no good alternative to Blair as leader of the Labour Party.
I assumed, and i’m sure that Plaid Cymru have said, that the impeaching process is only being used to force a debate in parliament and keep the issue on the boil during the run up to elections.
As Blair would like nothing more than to say: " that was then , this is now, i’m a great guy", i wholeheartedly agree with any method of reminding the electorate why 10,000 people have ,so far, had to die.
Would love it if he did get impeached.
Doubt he will.
Sin
Is it likely that Blair will be forced out by this process? - No.
It is an attempt to at least embarass him, and at best make him actually answer the questions about Iraq that he continues to dodge.
Bear in mind if he was actually forced out of office by this (or decided that it was the last straw and resigned) the most obvious, and likely, replacement is Gordon Brown (texture like sun) who is worse than Blair (hard to believe I know, but it is possible)
What could possibly happen is that enough labour MPs (most of whom hate him even more than I do (about a hundred million sun’s worth in my case) might see this as a chance to get rid of him and get in Gordon Brown (through my mind she runs).
Just out of interest, what is it in your eyes that makes Gordon Brown (finer temptress) worse than Blair?
I know you’re a conservative type - he’s fiscally prudent and anti-euro (if his five unachievable tests are anything to go by). Surely you’d prefer Gordon Brown (through my mind she runs) to Tony Blair?
Fiscally prudent my arse! He’s ramped up taxes to unprecented levels, destroyed millions of poor bastard’s pension funds and put every workshy mouth-breathing layabout on the public payroll.
Gordon Brown (he’s heading west) also managed to sell off all our gold at half price because the “fiscal genius” doesn’t understand the futures and derivitives markets. The muppet.
Gordon Brown (tied to the mast) does at least dislike the Euro - but even a broken clock is right twice a day - it’s the same thing.
Never a frown with Gordon Brown? Bollocks.
At least “Lionel” Blair doesn’t actively hate anyone with ambition - although he does do his level best to make it impossible to do anything about it.
