Interconnect

High crimes and misdemeanours

All the evidence shows that the Prime Minister misled Parliament and the people on the eve of the Iraq war. Now, as Peter Oborne reveals, a group of MPs are determined to impeach him

issue 28 August 2004

Next month a group of British MPs will launch impeachment proceedings against Tony Blair. This is a very dramatic and powerful act, rooted deep in British history. Though once a commonplace sanction against abuse of power by the executive, the instrument of impeachment has not been used since 1848, when it was alleged that Lord Palmerston, while foreign minister, had entered into a secret treaty with Russia.

Nevertheless, impeachment remains part of parliamentary law, a recourse for desperate times. Many MPs feel certain that the moment critique has now arrived. They remain in a state of despair at the way the Prime Minister systematically misled the House of Commons and the British people over the Iraq war. For several weeks a powerful draft document — provisionally entitled ‘A Case to Answer: A Report on the Possibility of the Impeachment of the British Prime Minister Tony Blair for High Crimes and Misdemeanours in relation to the Invasion of Iraq’ — setting out the charges, has been in private circulation.

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