Commons to debate Tony Blair’s contempt of parliament motion

The House of Commons is to debate a motion to find Tony Blair in contempt of parliament over the build-up to Iraqi war after a cross-party group of MPs agreed a date with the Speaker yesterday for the motion to be heard.

The MPs, from seven of the Westminster parties, plan to present a motion saying that in the wake of the Chilcot report into the conflict, it was clear the former prime minister had given the Commons “seriously misleading” statements in 2001, 2002 and 2003, and should be held in contempt of the house.

According to The Guardian, even if the motion was passed, which would seem unlikely, it would be largely symbolic, as the power for the Commons to punish non-MPs has not been used for many years.

The cross-party group, comprising Alex Salmond of the SNP, the Conservative Sir Roger Gale, Kate Hoey of Labour, Greg Mulholland from the Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru’s Hywel Williams, Margaret Ritchie from the SDLP and Caroline Lucas of the Greens, had hoped to see the motion debated yesterday.

However, the Speaker refused this and the debate will now happen in September, after the parliamentary recess, on one of the SNP’s allocated opposition days.

Published earlier this month, the Chilcot report damned Blair’s decision to join the United States invasion of Iraq, saying this was done “before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted”.

In the wake of the report, the seven MPs presented the Speaker with what they are terming a “dossier of truth” – a reference to the prewar “dodgy dossier” – seeking to detail how they believe Chilcot supposedly shows Blair misled the Commons.

Salmond said he would have preferred the debate to take place before the recess. “It is disappointing that the Speaker did not accept that the contempt motion should take precedence in the parliamentary timetable,” he said.

“It will be a great disappointment to the millions of people who have been waiting so long for the former prime minister to be finally held to parliamentary account for the disaster of the Iraq war.”

The motion to be debated reads: “That the report of the Iraq inquiry, its findings and in particular the publication of the associated correspondence from the former prime minister, Mr. Tony Blair, to the president of United States, and others, demonstrates that statements made to the House of Commons by Mr. Tony Blair in 2001, 2002 and 2003 on the subject of military action in Iraq were seriously misleading and that accordingly we find Mr. Blair in contempt of this House.”