http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/...1354680,00.html


Commons motion to impeach Blair gets go-ahead

David Hencke, Westminster correspondent
Friday November 19, 2004
The Guardian

The parliamentary motion to impeach Tony Blair for "gross misconduct" over the war against Iraq will be published next Wednesday, the day after the Queen's speech.

It will be the first to be tabled in 198 years, since Lord Melville, a close friend of the then prime minister, William Pitt the younger, faced impeachment for misusing public money in running the Admiralty.

Senior parliamentary officials, including legal advisers to the Commons Speaker, Michael Martin, on Wednesday night approved the wording of the text as meeting parliamentary rules, allowing the motion to be tabled on the first day of the new session. The Tory chief whip, David Maclean, has paged every Tory frontbench MP telling them not to sign it.

The Liberal Democrats are divided, with Jenny Tonge, the MP for Richmond, among those supporting the idea and Sir Menzies Campbell, the party's foreign affairs spokesman, strongly opposing it. No Labour MP is expected to sign the motion for fear of losing the party whip for bringing the leader into disrepute.

The motion, which was drawn up by Douglas Hogg, the MP for Sleaford and North Hykeham and son of the former Tory lord chancellor Lord Hailsham, is attracting support among backbench MPs who would not normally support the same cause.

The latest recruits among the 25 backing the call are George Galloway, the deselected Labour MP for Glasgow Kelvin, who is suing the Daily Telegraph for libel over allegations he took money from Saddam Hussein, and John Gummer, the former Tory environment secretary and MP for Suffolk Coastal.

Adam Price, the Plaid Cymru MP who launched the campaign for the motion, said yesterday: "This is the only way left to MPs to call the prime minister to account over his conduct in the war against Iraq."

at least someone is getting impeached

Well, if Blair goes, and the new PM pulls the British troops out of Iraq, then our coalition will really be a farce. (Not that it isn't already -- it will just be more of a farce.)

Maybe Bush can get that country to send the monkeys over to detonate land mines, as was documented in F 9/11.

Give Blair a one-way ticket to Iraq and a villa in the green zone.

too bad we are not part of the crown right now

Oh well back to tea and crumpets for me

thank god. You know my great great great uncle started the labour party. I'm so ashamed that Blair is the head of it. I will be glad to see England get some justice. My uncle must be rolling in his grave because of Blair.

Yea, along with that guy who "committed suicide" in the woods.

This has made my YEAR!

The chances of it succeeding are slim but just the fact it has sufficient support to go ahead is a death knell for Tony Blair !

Being Bush's poodle doesn't sit well in Britain !

This is great! I posted on the Kerry/Edwards board that the breakthrough may in fact be triggered from overseas!

Blair being impeached will weaken Bush considerably!!!

I hope you are not insinuating a burial plot as well!

Yea... We're gonna need Britain and the other colonies to save our butts.

I wonder how long it is until this hits the US news (if ever).

I'm not a Brit, and I rarely follow their politics, but wasn't Blair respected tremendously before Bush led him astray?

I'm glad too something is happening! Too bad we couldn't do something here. *sigh*

Not at all. The green zone is 100%, absolutely safe and insurgent free!

It's good to know that the Brits are not as blind to Blair's bumbling as conservative boobs are to Bush's blunders.

How the heck has it come to this? The vast majority of Americans are decent, freedom loving, understanding souls! How can the government of a hyperpower be hijacked?

Sarcasm becomes you!

This just in!

Diebold voting machines to be placed in House of Commons, along with ESS tabulators for upcoming Blair impeachment vote!

NOT

I wish someone in our government would have the backbone to do this to Bush. I have signed petitions to impeach him months ago based on numerous things. I would like to know why they aren't acted on.

Is there a way we can holler louder for impeachment and get some attention?

I know it is difficult because the Republicans control the house, senate, and White House and they decide what gets investigated and even what witnesses get called to testify.

[quote=MrJim,Nov 18 2004, 07:58 PM]
[url=http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1354680,00.html]

Is anybody here from Britian? Maybe we can learn from what they did and we can write to our local democrats in our counties?

[quote=Mesmerize,Nov 18 2004, 11:31 PM]
I wish someone in our government would have the backbone to do this to Bush. I have signed petitions to impeach him months ago based on numerous things. I would like to know why they aren't acted on.

Is there a way we can holler louder for impeachment and get some attention?

I know it is difficult because the Republicans control the house, senate, and White House and they decide what gets investigated and even what witnesses get called to testify.

[quote=MrJim,Nov 18 2004, 07:58 PM]
[url=http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1354680,00.html]

[/quote]

I'll admit that I did, and deep down still do, like Blair. Unfortunately, Bush has put him in a place where he is now "collateral damage".

Media control.

Electronic voting.

A vast neocon conspiracy reaching back to the end of WWII, complete with short-term, medium term, and long term plans, risk plans, contingency plans, mitigation plans, strategy sessions, scenarios, decision trees, etc.

Is your blood getting cold?

It most certainly will weaken Bush. But the problem being, our troops will be way overextended if Britain starts pulling out and we are STUCK with Bush for another four years...Too bad this didn't happen a few months ago.

The Democrats can definately initiate proceedings based on the lies used to go to war and the President's insistence that no lies were told by anyone in the entire chain of command that led him to allegedly tell an unbeknownst lie to the American Public and the world about the facts used as a basis to secure both Congresses and the American Publics approval for the war, but they lack the guts.

Maybe they are just being cautious; we don't have much ground left to lose.

Taking over a country is easy.

The CIA used to do it for fun, remember?

Current NeoCon projects that are now underway, include:

New copyright laws. For instance, 3 years in jail for recording a film in a movie theater, and making it illegal to skip a commercial on a DVD that you own.

The elimination of the right of a journalist to conceal his sources.

Soon the First Amendment will be no more, the Internet will be locked down, and...

After the new Draft pressgangs our youth into the military, our fearless leader will impose Democracy, Freedom and Christian values upon the world, in our lifetime, by force, or threat of force.

(BTW, I didn't know this until yesterday, but before the war in Iraq started, 50% of the Iraqi population were children. A quarter-million deaths, and who knows how many wounded and maimed later, what happens to those children?)

Maybe. There comes a point when being cautious becomes being nullified, in politics.

The Democratic Party is just cowardly in bringing the kind of popular issues, that Kerry's campaign spoke to the American Public about, to the Congress and President. Either they have no balls, are ready to be enslaved, or are complicit. None of these are great alternatives for us.

The Republicans attack even the most remote suggestion that a Democrat could be a decent person, or that progressive ideas are valid, yet the Democrats REACT to everything in such a negligible way (note: there are a few exceptions).

Bravo!!!! You know, through all of this, I wish Diana were alive....her voice of outrage proably could have averted Britain from such a disasterous path. I guess better late than never....Blair made his bed, now he can sleep in it.....I just wish his bed were in Fallujah, sleeping next to bush.

Hi,

I am a brit.

Blair was well respected before this fiasco occurred. Domestically, he has done a few good things.

The problem is that 60% of the electorate didn't bother to vote in the last election, and only a quarter endorsed Blair as Prime Minister. Personally, I could never trust him and I never voted for him in either election.

I think this fiasco will bring him down like Watergate did for Nixon.

Go to www.impeachblair.org to

1) Download a copy of the impeachment report (PDF: 316Kb)

2) Sign an electronic petition (which is NOT restricted to British Residents, unlike some of your own in the US; If you cant do it to Bush, do it to Blair) :D

David

You watch...the neocons will be foaming at the mouth (as if they didn't all the time already) at the Brits for impeaching Blair. "We don't need 'em...bomb 'em back to the stone age," "they can go **** themselves," all of this after England supported us.

They're gonna need all the ire for the hoards who want THEIR blood. And it still won't be enough. The neocons will never understand that the world can do without them, and that includes our overpriced goods. We simply cannot go around forcing other cultures to do what we want them to do all the time without paying the consequences for such presumption.

Edit and P.S.: Thanks, Trigger, I signed the petition. I'm of the opinion that perhaps Bush can be stopped if the supports are knocked out from under him. We'll see how this goes!

Impeaching Blair is preposterous. Any British Prime Minister is easier to remove than an American President. The British have a Parliament form of government for crying out loud.

This is merely a publicity stunt.

Your tone implies that you think that there is more to the current state of affairs in politics than "publicity stunts". Chalabi in the Rose Garden? Manipulating color codes after bad political news? Landing on a carrier with a flight suit and fake sign put up by your publicity team? Telling Iraqis to wait a few minutes before pulling down a statue of Saddam so the cameras can get into place? Having 3/5 people on the congressional ethics committee decide on the political fate of the man who got them into congress in the first place? The 9/11 Commission?

Politics is all publicity. The defanged/detoothed rightwing consolidated corporate media may be schills for the neocons, but their presentation of political events is what allows Dubya and his puppetmasters to act as they do...

You are right, can't argue with you on the facts. It seems to help to stay abreast of the action though.

Brits don't play, they are very aggressive. Maybe we can follow their lead.

Wow - we'll see if this gets anywhere -

I think it will probably fail because Blair will be able to cobble together a coalition of conservatives and conservative labor members to defeat it...

If they had the votes why wouldn't they just remove him with a no confidence vote?

[quote=Mesmerize,Nov 18 2004, 10:31 PM]
I wish someone in our government would have the backbone to do this to Bush. I have signed petitions to impeach him months ago based on numerous things. I would like to know why they aren't acted on.

Is there a way we can holler louder for impeachment and get some attention?

I know it is difficult because the Republicans control the house, senate, and White House and they decide what gets investigated and even what witnesses get called to testify.

[quote=MrJim,Nov 18 2004, 07:58 PM]
[url=http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1354680,00.html]

[/quote]

Very true, some backbone is needed. I myself have signed many petitions.

Or why, is it that people in other countries who were served an injustice just as we are right now, uprise over their governments. For example Mosjeivic, (sorry if I spelled his name wrong) But it makes you think.

Clinton's impeachment failed, or did it?

He was tarnished by the Republicans and his political clout was weakened, while in office.

The same will be true for Blair.

The charges may not stick, but politically he will be done.

You hit the nail on the head!!!!

its never going to happen
come on you think the weed will allow his friend to fall!
yah right!
screw Iran!
we are off to England!

Blair actually may be allowing the resolution to go ahead because some of his supporters in labor may be feeling the heat from their constituents who in order to not support their defeat in elections - need to see some action in opposition to Blair - to quell their anger at what is going on in Iraq - the resolution will allow them to say they are doing something and when it is defeated they can blame the tories...