MPs call for Blair impeachment over Iraq

Anti-war campaigners will join MPs in Westminster this afternoon to call for the impeachment of British Prime Minister Tony Blair…

Anti-war campaigners will join MPs in Westminster this afternoon to call for the impeachment of British Prime Minister Tony Blair for "gross misconduct" over the Iraq war.

Some 23 MPs have signed a Commons motion calling for the Prime Minister to be thrown out of office.

Author Iain Banks, playwright Harold Pinter and musician Brian Eno are due to join them for a photocall in Parliament.

It is the first attempt top impeach a British Prime Minister for 198 years. The group says Mr Blair misled Parliament and the country over the case for war, destroying "the fundamental principle of parliamentary democracy".

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It is demanding a select committee of MPs be set up to examine the PM's conduct in relation to the war and decide whether there are grounds to impeach him on charges of gross misconduct.

Plaid Cymru MP Mr Adam Price, who started the campaign, also wants a Commons debate on the Prime Minister'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 have been brushed aside. The Cabinet table has been replaced with the sofa, Cabinet minutes with e-mail and the facts replaced with belief.

"People say politicians do nothing and are all alike. Today we make a stand for parliamentary democracy. We ask our colleagues and the people to help us restore the accountability of the government to parliament."