Mr Twigg also disputed a news report that said he had “defended” Tony Blair in the Commons last Wednesday, arguing that his comments were meant to find out on behalf of constituents whether the Prime Minister thought Chilcot’s findings confirmed or otherwise the main accusations levelled at Mr Blair, namely that he had lied to or misled MPs, that intelligence findings had been distorted or that he had broken global law by going to war.
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The former Prime Minister, who led his party to three successive general election victories, could also be stripped of his membership of the Privy Council.
“It’s a bit like contempt of court, essentially by deceit”.
He said: “Three in terms of the weapons of mass destruction, one in terms of the United Nations votes were going, and one in terms of the threat, the risks”.
Misleading the House on one occasion could have been an accident, but not five times, the former Conservative leadership party said.
All an MP needs to do to start the process is bring a motion to the house, which then needs to be accepted by the Speaker, John Bercow. “Parliament must hold to account, including Tony Blair, those who took us into this particular war”, he said.
Asked whether he would vote for invasion again, he said: “If we could see what’s happened we would challenge them to make sure they had a proper plan in place which we were assured there was”.
“The Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, came to the Cabinet, verbally announced it was legal, but provided no documentation”, Prescott said.
A senior Tory behind the motion said the public now wanted to see the former prime minister “punished” for his role in taking Britain to war in Iraq. “With great sadness and anger, I now believe him to be right”.
On Wednesday, Tony Blair described the decision to join the USA in military action in the Iraqi war as the “hardest, most momentous, most agonizing” of his life.
Prescott, writing in the Sunday Mirror newspaper, said he had now changed his view about the legality of the war and criticized Blair for stopping his ministers from fully discussing in advance whether the war would be legal.
“A day doesn’t go by when I don’t think of the decision we made to go to war …”
The news comes in the light of the Iraq inquiry by Sir John Chilcot which found the former prime minister’s government had relied on “flawed intelligence” and “far from satisfactory legal advice”. He has also indicated he will “stand with” bereaved families who are considering legal action against Mr Blair. “Everyone I have spoken to says there has been a trial but not verdict”. This is about what parliament does if it believes it was misled over a huge issue or systematically misled over a period of time.
And he said that the findings showed that he did not lie or mislead MPs. Lucas claimed it could result in Blair being “barred from public office”.
The Chilcot report accuses the former PM of twisting facts relating to the Iraqis under Saddam Hussein possessing weapons of mass destruction.
She said in a statement: “The Chilcot report was never going to settle the arguments about the war”.
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“My first concern was the way Tony Blair ran Cabinet”.
