LABOUR leader Corbyn absented himself from the vote on Wednesday night when Labour and Tory MPs voted down an SNP motion condemning the misleading of parliament by former PM Blair, in order to join the US in invading Iraq.
Along with Corbyn, Diane Abbott and John McDonnell were also absent. The motion was defeated by 439 votes to 70, a majority of 369, with almost all Labour MPs who attended voting with the Tories against the motion.
The SNP motion said the former Labour prime minister had given Parliament false information on his dealings with US President Bush. It called for a further investigation ‘and to report to the House in what further action is considered necessary and appropriate to help prevent any repetition of this disastrous series of events.’
Moving the motion, MP Alex Salmond, the former Scottish First Minister, said the push towards war in 2003 had been ‘very much a personal campaign’ by Blair. It was a ‘question of parliamentary accountability’, he said, demanding an inquiry, and declared that Blair had ‘grievously misled’ the public ‘into that disastrous conflict’.
But Labour’s shadow foreign office minister Fabian Hamilton warned against making Blair a ‘scapegoat’, while Tory Cabinet Office minister Chris Skidmore claimed there was ‘no merit’ in further inquiries into the Iraq war.
‘As for how people should account for themselves, it is for them to read the report and explain why they did what they did.’ For the government, Cabinet Office minister Chris Skidmore said there was ‘no merit’ in further inquiries into the Iraq war, and the Chilcot report contained ‘nothing’ which pointed to ‘deliberate deceit’ of Parliament by Blair.
Shadow Defence Secretary and Labour MP for Leeds Fabian Hamilton said: ‘No-one will benefit if we continue to try and turn a collective institutional and international failure in Iraq into an attempt to pillory or scapegoat one individual.’
Jeremy Corbyn missed the debate and the vote after deciding to impose only a one-line whip on his MPs, meaning they were not obliged to attend. Corbyn in a compromise agreed that Labour MPs who turned up to the debate would have to vote against condemning Blair.
Paul Flynn was one of only a handful of Labour MPs, who included Dennis Skinner and Kelvin Hopkins, who defied the whip to vote in favour of the motion. Senior figures such as Ed Miliband, Margaret Beckett and Hilary Benn turned out to join the Tories in voting down the motion.
