Even More Like Clinton

30 August 2004



Blair May Face First Impeachment Debate in 150 Years

British politics used to rely on the theory of "Ministerial Accountability." That meant that when there was an appallingly bad screw up in a government ministry, the top man would hand in his resignation. This allowed the appearance of a fresh start, and it didn't really matter if the resigning minister was personally responsible or not. He'd often get a new job in the next cabinet reshuffle. This has become less and less common as the years have passed, but the beauty of the British system lies in its antiquity. Since Mr. Blair has refused to resign over his mishandling of the Iraq war, and since a vote of no confidence would force new elections if successful, some MPs have decided to impeach Mr. Blair, removing him and only him from office. This hasn't been tried since 1848, and it's long over due.

Mr. Blair is an excellent politician, and in many respects leads a Labour Party that can be trusted to govern properly in a way that Labour in the 1980s was not. Mr. Blair is a thoughtful, educated man whose patriotism is beyond reproach. But he made a dreadful error in backing Mr. Bush's war against Iraq on the flimsiest grounds. Had he gone to the Queen and resigned when it became obvious that there were no WMD in Iraq, he would have retained his dignity and merited the respect not only of the nation but of the world. Instead, he clings to power against all precedent.

A recent report by Glen Rangwala, a lecturer at Newnham College, Cambridge and Dan Plesch, Honorary Fellow of Birkbeck College, University of London and a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the University of Keele, lays out the case for impeachment. Adam Price, MP, says he will ask the Speaker of the House for a debate on impeachment of Mr. Blair. Based on precedent, there is no grounds for the request to be denied, and there is no need for a second.

Mr. Price's foreword to the report says, "We are guided in this action by that most ancient of parliamentary doctrines: the principle of ministerial accountability, that those who lead us cannot mislead us and then remain in office. It is simply unprecedented for a minister to refuse to resign in the face of such compelling evidence. All the usual constitutional conventions have been exhausted. Further inquiries into the Prime Minister’s conduct have been refused. A vote of no confidence would bring all ministers within its scope and, therefore, fail to reflect the extent to which this Prime Minister made Iraq a matter of individual, not collective, responsibility, through the practice, as revealed by Lord Butler, not of government-by-cabinet but government-by-cabal. It is difficult to see why other ministers should find themselves in the dock when they were consistently kept in the dark through the actions of the Prime Minister."

This principle made impeachment obsolete after the 1948 failure to impeach Prime Minister Palmerston for concluding a secret treaty with the Tsar. Mr. Price argues that since Mr. Blair won't accept the principle of ministerial accountability, impeachment is the only course.

The effort will fail in all likelihood. But it will make Mr. Blair face the House once again to explain his behavior. And the next election looms. There is an interesting calculation that otherwise loyal Labour MPs will have to make. Their party led the nation into a war that most Britons opposed and oppose. Axing Mr. Blair might help them keep their jobs. And impeachment means they don't have to face the voters yet. The division of the House might be closer than Mr. Blair would wish.


© Copyright 2004 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.


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