In November 2004, a cross-party group of British members of parliament tabled a motion in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...

impeach Impeachment is the process by which a legislative body or other legally constituted tribunal initiates charges against a public official for misconduct. It may be understood as a unique process involving both political and legal elements. In ...

the

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom The prime minister of the United Kingdom is the head of government of the United Kingdom. The prime minister advises the sovereign on the exercise of much of the royal prerogative, chairs the Cabinet and selects its ministers. As modern ...

at the time,

Tony Blair Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He previously served as Leader of th ...

for " high crimes and misdemeanours". The motion was never debated.

Viability

In the UK the most recent previous impeachment motion was made in 1848 (by

Thomas Chisholm Anstey Thomas Chisholm Anstey (1816 – 12 August 1873) was an English lawyer and one of the first Catholic parliamentarians in the nineteenth century. He served as Attorney General of Hong Kong for 4 years. He also wrote pamphlets on legal and polit ...

against the Foreign Secretary

Lord Palmerston Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, (20 October 1784 – 18 October 1865) was a British statesman who was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the mid-19th century. Palmerston dominated British foreign policy during the period ...

, who was accused of concluding a secret treaty with Russia). The campaigners first needed to establish that impeachment was still viable in modern politics. On 17 November 2004 the speaker ruled their motion in order and it was tabled for the next session.

Initial presentation

In August 2004,

Plaid Cymru Plaid Cymru ( ; ; officially Plaid Cymru – the Party of Wales, often referred to simply as Plaid) is a centre-left to left-wing, Welsh nationalist political party in Wales, committed to Welsh independence from the United Kingdom. Plaid wa ...

MP Adam Price commissioned and published the report: ''A Case to Answer: a first report on the potential impeachment of the Prime Minister for High Crimes and Misdemeanours in relation to the invasion of Iraq''. The document was written by Dr Glen Rangwala (lecturer of politics at

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a public collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world's third oldest surviving university and one of its most pr ...

) and

Dan Plesch Dan or DAN may refer to: People * Dan (name), including a list of people with the name ** Dan (king), several kings of Denmark * Dan people, an ethnic group located in West Africa **Dan language, a Mande language spoken primarily in Côte d'Ivo ...

(Honorary Fellow of Birkbeck, University of London.)

Legal opinion

The campaign hired solicitor

Phil Shiner Philip Joseph Shiner (born 25 December 1956) is a British former human rights solicitor. He was struck off the roll of solicitors in England and Wales in 2017 over misconduct relating to false abuse claims against British troops. He was Head o ...

Public Interest Lawyers In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...

to represent their case. They have also asked

Matrix Chambers Matrix Chambers is a barristers' chambers in Gray's Inn London, Brussels, and Geneva. Founded in April 2000 by 22 barristers from 7 different chambers, it now has over 90 independent and specialist lawyers who work throughout the UK and interna ...

to draw up a legal opinion. Matrix is known for its advocacy of human rights cases and for being the barristers' chambers of Blair's wife and

Queen's Counsel In the United Kingdom and in some Commonwealth countries, a King's Counsel (post-nominal initials KC) during the reign of a king, or Queen's Counsel (post-nominal initials QC) during the reign of a queen, is a lawyer (usually a barrister o ...

, Cherie Booth. Booth was not involved in the case due to the obvious conflict of interest.

Drafting team

The drafting team for the motion was announced on 13 October 2004: File:DouglasHogg 20040917.jpg,

Douglas Hogg Douglas Martin Hogg, 3rd Viscount Hailsham, Baron Hailsham of Kettlethorpe (born 5 February 1945), is a British politician and barrister. A member of the Conservative Party he served in the Cabinet as Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Foo ...

File:Edward Garnier, Solicitor General.jpg,

Edward Garnier Edward Henry Garnier, Baron Garnier, (born 26 October 1952) is a British barrister and former Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom. A former lawyer for ''The Guardian'' newspaper, Lord Garnier is on the socially liberal wing of h ...

File:Elfyn Llwyd MP.jpg,

Elfyn Llwyd Elfyn Llwyd (born 26 September 1951) is a Welsh barrister and politician. He was a Member of Parliament, representing Meirionnydd Nant Conwy in the House of Commons from 1992 to 2010 and Dwyfor Meirionnydd from 2010 to 2015. Llwyd was Plaid Cy ...

File:Alex Salmond, First Minister of Scotland (cropped).jpg,

Alex Salmond Alexander Elliot Anderson Salmond (; born 31 December 1954) is a Scottish politician and economist who served as First Minister of Scotland from 2007 to 2014. A prominent figure on the Scottish nationalist movement, he has served as leader ...

It appeared that the team would also draft the articles of impeachment. In earlier impeachment cases, this has usually been done after the motion, although it also occurred first in the case of Warren Hastings. The drafting team completed the text of the impeachment motion on 7 November 2004.

Impeachment motion

The legal advisers to the

Speaker of the House of Commons Speaker of the House of Commons is a political leadership position found in countries that have a House of Commons, where the membership of the body elects a speaker to lead its proceedings. Systems that have such a position include: * Speaker of ...

, Michael Martin, approved the wording of the motion on 17 November 2004. The motion was tabled for the first day of the next session (the day after the Queen's Speech) on 24 November 2004. However, the main three parties forbade their MPs from signing the motion and it was never selected for debate. If the motion had been selected, it would have allowed MPs to debate matters that parliamentary language otherwise forbids. For example, on 17 March 2005, the anniversary of going to war, Price accused Tony Blair of misleading the house. Because this breached the rules of parliamentary language, he was required to leave the House for the remainder of the day. However, such rules only apply to debate within the House. In press and radio and television interviews, other MPs have accused Blair of lying to the House and to the British people, including then opposition leader Michael Howard.

References

External links

* * *{{cite news , url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4358313.stm , title=Adam Price thrown out of the commons , publisher=BBC News , date=17 March 2005 Political campaigns in the United Kingdom Tony Blair Blair, Tony 2004 establishments in the United Kingdom Cross-party campaigns