MPs call for Blair's impeachment

Twenty-three MPs have signed a Commons motion calling for the prime minister to be thrown out of office.

They say he misled Parliament over the case for war and are demanding a select committee of MPs be set up to examine his conduct in relation to the war.

Author Iain Banks and playwright Harold Pinter will join the MPs for a photocall in Parliament.

'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.

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

BBC correspondent Sue Littlemore said that as the government is not likely to allow time for a debate, it seems almost certain the impeachment attempt will stall.

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

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".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/4037375.stm