Talk:Parliamentary motion to impeach Tony Blair

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Removed Peter Bottomley as he's no longer listed as a supporter. Is suspect he's following the Conservative party line. Paul Sinnett 06:08, 2005 May 14 (UTC)

I asked via the campaign web-site if it would be possible for wikisource to hold the "A Case to Answer" report, but got no reply. Paul Sinnett 06:08, 2005 May 14 (UTC)

Neutrality

I do not think this page is particularly POV now, but it is one-sided. There is no reaction from the prime minister or mainstream Labour Party, no discussion of the issues although they can be found elsewhere. I have barely heard of this matter apart from a little publicity around its launch - it's hardly caught the public imagination or caused Blair any sleepless nights. More to the point, I think this will be a footnote of the history of Blair or of the Iraq issue in ten years time, with about as many MPs supporting this as supported pigeons in Trafalgar Square, albeit on a more important issues, i.e. trivia, not encyclopedic.

I don't propose deletion (with merger as a para into Tony Blair, etc) this side of the election, just in case something does come of it, but I think we should be certain that this is an article worthy of Wikipedia. Mtiedemann 23:38, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I know what you mean. Unfortunately the "official" position of the mainstream Labour Party is to ignore it or dismiss it - if you've found any other official position please add it. To a certain extent, the effort stagnated while the election was on since the MPs had their priorities elsewhere. However, Adam Price has suggested that the impeachment attempt will continue after the election and even should Blair stand down as PM. I also agree that this could be regarded as trivia with respect to Blair (should nothing come of it) however I think it stands as a useful addition to impeachment in British government since it was otherwise considered obsolete. 80.217.70.4 19:04, 7 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

This article should be completely merged into Tony Blair - as maybe a sentence or two as a footnote. Larryfooter 01:04, 9 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Comment on one of the MPs

I followed a link from "Mike Weir" here. Someone needs to create some kind of dab for that name. The existing "Mike Weir" article is about the Canadian golfer, not the Scottish MP. IMHO, "Mike Weir", without qualification, should direct to the golfer, as he is far better-known internationally than the MP (main claim to fame: winner of the 2003 Masters). Google data:

"Mike Weir": 681K hits
"Mike Weir golf": 401K hits
"Mike Weir MP": 80.5K hits

IMHO, the MP's article needs to be "Mike Weir (MP)", "Mike Weir (politician)", or the like. Dale Arnett 29 June 2005 04:35 (UTC)

POV tag

I am removing the tag, it can be replaced if specific percived POV issules are raised on the this talk page. Currently I can see none.--JK the unwise 08:33, 29 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Guff

I have deleted a load of non-enyclopedic stuff, if people want to find out the current activites they can go to website. I also deleted this
===Official web site===
On 24 November 2004 (the same day that the motion was tabled) the web site's original hosting company unexpectedly pulled the plug. The hosting company, 49pence, said they removed the site due to reports of spam. In reaction, the campaign registered the new name impeachblair.net. However the site's administrators say that 500 petition signatures have been lost.
As I it doesn't seem like a majour incident, please put it back if you disagree, say if you think its part of some government conspircy.--JK the unwise 08:52, 29 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

When to impeach

As I understand it (and I leave it to someone more familiar with the UK to add this to the article, if appropriate) the odd thing about impeachment in modern times is that the PM must have the political support of the Commons to remain in office, and thus impeachment requires that the Commons, in spite of political support, agrees that there has been criminal or nearly-criminal misconduct. Peter Grey 01:22, 30 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Impeachment isn't acceptance of guilt, it's an investigation into allegations. The general principal is that you're innocent until proven guilty (impeachment means that proof will be heard in a different court to the rest of the public.) There's nothing contradictory about supporting the PM and supporting impeachment. In my view, any MP who doubts the PM's story, but still opposes impeachment is guilty of obstruction of justice. On the other hand, any MP who believes in the PM's story but still opposes impeachment demonstrates a lack of trust in their own judicial system. Paul Sinnett 08:23, September 4, 2005 (UTC)

Vote for Deletion

This article survived a Vote for Deletion. The discussion can be found here. -Splash 18:08, 4 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

"Labour Reaction"

I Don't think this is a fair title for this section; it contains a quote from only 1 Labour MP expressing a purely personal opinion. It is perhaps worthwhile including, but we need a different heading rather than one that implies this is a representative quote from the Labour party.

From Tony Blair page

The following was cut from the Blair page as was taking up disproportionate space. I reproduce it here so that any material or refs not already incorporated into this article can be added.

The political fallout from the Iraq War continued to dog Blair's premiership after the Butler Review. On 25 August 2004 Plaid Cymru MP Adam Price announced he would attempt to impeach Blair,^[1] hoping to invoke a Parliamentary procedure that has lain dormant for 150 years but has never been abolished. In principle, the House of Commons has the power to indict Tony Blair with a trial before the House of Lords, who would in turn have the power to pass whatever sentence it considered appropriate, without reference to the ordinary criminal courts. The campaign attracted the support of writers Iain Banks and Frederick Forsyth, and actor Corin Redgrave, but neither the Conservatives nor the Liberal Democrats officially backed it. The case for Blair's impeachment was outlined by Adam Price in a report entitled "A case to answer".^[2] However, impeachment is in disuse in the UK constitution and critical writers pointed to the unlikelihood of a Labour majority House of Commons voting to impeach a Labour Prime Minister. ^[3]

^ "Blair impeachment campaign starts". BBC News. 2004-08-27. Retrieved 2006-11-18.
^ Rangwala, Dr Glen (August 2004). "A Case to Answer" (PDF). www.impeachblair.org. Retrieved 2006-11-18. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
^ See, e.g., Andrew Sparrow, "Stars back attempt to impeach Tony Blair", Daily Telegraph, 25 November 2004: "Given Labour's majority and the refusal of the Conservative Party leadership to support the move, there is no chance of the Commons voting in favour of the impeachment motion".

Notability of issue

It's interesting to read this article 12 years or so after the events. What at the time must have seemed very important, I think can now been seen as a relatively small if curious footnote both in Tony Blair's political career and the UK Parliament. In fact, the notability is probably more about Parliament as there is an actual a brief Commons Library document on Impeachment which details the events of 2004. I was inclined to nominate this article for deletion, but I can see that happened back in August 2005. I'm going to edit it, to improve references if anything.Seaweed (talk) 19:18, 8 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

[1] "Blair impeachment campaign starts". BBC News. 2004-08-27. Retrieved 2006-11-18.

[2] Rangwala, Dr Glen (August 2004). "A Case to Answer" (PDF). www.impeachblair.org. Retrieved 2006-11-18. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

[SparrowDT-3] See, e.g., Andrew Sparrow, "Stars back attempt to impeach Tony Blair", Daily Telegraph, 25 November 2004: "Given Labour's majority and the refusal of the Conservative Party leadership to support the move, there is no chance of the Commons voting in favour of the impeachment motion".

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