MPs tell Cherie's chambers to impeach Blair

MPs attempting to impeach the Prime Minister over the Iraq war have instructed lawyers from his wife's chambers to draw up the court papers.

The anti-war group has instructed Rabinder Singh QC, from Matrix, to assemble the papers and proceedings. A draft motion for impeachment will be published next month.

However, the impeachment attempt is doomed to fail, a senior Parliamentarian said today.

The anti-war MPs, led by Welsh Nationalist Adam Price, claim there are grounds to impeach Tony Blair for his "high crimes and misdemeanours" in taking Britain to war. Mr Price has commissioned a 100-page document from two academics, setting out the case against him.

It claims he seriously misled Parliament over Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. It also claims Mr Blair did not tell the truth because he had entered a secret agreement with President Bush to invade Iraq.

The bid looks certain to fail, as Parliamentary rules make clear that the power of impeachment is defunct. A 1999 report by the Joint Committee on Parliamentary Privilege stated: "The circumstances in which impeachment has taken place are now so remote from the present that the procedure may be considered obsolete."

A senior Parliamentarian said it was "the most nonsensical" idea he had heard. "I cannot think of any procedure which can be deployed to get at the Prime Minister in this way," he said.

He added that the Speaker was highly unlikely to grant Mr Price the chance to propose a motion calling for Mr Blair to stand trial. The power of impeachment has not been used for 150 years, when it was alleged that Lord Palmerston had entered into a secret treaty with Russia.

In the unlikely circumstances that Mr Price's impeachment proceeds, Mr Blair could be arrested and delivered to Black Rod. He would then face trial in Westminster Hall, which hosted the trials of Charles I and Guy Fawkes.

The campaign has caught the imagination of Westminster. Mr Price is being backed by Boris Johnson, the Tory MP for Henley, and Alex Salmond of the Scottish National Party. Mr Salmond insisted the obscure charge could still be brought against Mr Blair.

Even if the impeachment bid fails, the attack has reopened the debate about WMD ahead of the new political season.