May I ask a stupid question? (The Iraqi Occupation)

[demgurl]

I was raised in Canada but I now live in the States. I try to think of myself as being informed but I do not know very much about UK law.

Here is my query. I want to bring down Bush but our government seems to be totally bought and paid for with no hope of ever getting the jerk. I thought perhaps one way of bringing down Bush would be through Blair. They went into this together and Blair is susceptible to the world court - in case you have not heard, Bush passed a law that we can go in, with force, if the world court ever tries to take down any of our officials. What is the feeling in your country and how can Blair be brought down? Or can he? Can he be impeached or what is your process over there?

I know I may sound ignorant but we are so censored over here and while I try to keep up with the goings on in the world, I have so much information to try and dig up here. Any information you can provide would be much appreciated.

[Alcibiades]

1. Vote of no confidence

That, at least, would be the parliamentary means whereby Blair's government could be brought down. The same as in Canada.

[demgurl]

2. I figured it might be something close to Canada ...

but you know what happens when you assume. Thank you.

[evermind]

3. There is an "impeach Blair" process that some people are trying to get

underway, but it has much less steam up than the corresponding one in the States has.

Personally, I've adopted the opposite view to yours, thinking that if Bush goes down hard then that just might finally tip the scales on Tony.

Really, though, the benefit of toppling Blair is debatable. I think we have less of a credible opposition here in the UK than there is in the States: at least there they have people like Conyers and Boxer who are in a mainstream party and can express their views with little interference from the party hierarchy, as well as big names in the Senate like Kerry who appear to at least want to look as though they take issues like the contents Downing St Memo seriously. In a Democrat-dominated Congress and Senate, which is at least a hope for next year, there could be serious trouble for Bush.

Here, if Brown takes over, as seems inevitable, there's no evidence that much serious change will result. He has a cleaner image, but has almost completely confined himself to issues in the domestic economy, so has never really had to make statements on foreign policy. Where he has made them, he's almost completely towed Blair's line. Also, he has the same US-influenced New Labour "modernising" background as Blair. His economic policies have been as friendly to the City big money boys as the Tory governments of the '80s and 90s could have wished for, and have been described as "Thatcherism in a pink dress".

In terms of opposing the disastrous Blair policies here, we have a tiny 3rd party (the Lib Dems) who are anti-Iraq-war, and a group of between 30-60 (New) Labour MP's, but the latter are under some measure of control from the Party Whip, and don't seem to have the collective guts to pursue Blair in a meaningful way, preferring to stay within the ambit of party respectability and win small compromises. The former (somewhat to my surprise given their anti-war stance) seem reluctant to put their party behind an impeachment process.

The main opposition Tory Party must be laughing quietly off-camera, as the thrust of Blair policy, this term and last, contains little to differentiate it from that of previous Tory governments (give or take a few economic sops in the direction of social equality). If any serious legal or foreign policy debates were to look like a defeat for the government in the Commons, I'm sure the Tories would back Blair.

The impeachment of Blair itself is backed mostly by nationalists from Wales and Scotland and a handful of renegade Tories, with a couple of Lib Dems acting independently from their parties - as well as the single Respect party MP George Galloway, of course! You can see a list of them at the site http://www.impeachblair.org , as well as the legal case and evidence that Blair is impeachable.

So all in all I don't see a great deal of hope for the prospect of derailing UK support for US neocon policies. The only way the international conduct of the UK can be improved substantially, I fear, is to attack the source of the problem: the US administration that we here are apparently in thrall to.