Iraq week - the parliamentary vote.
I wrote yesterday that the parliamentary vote was one of the illusions offered to placate the opponents of the war, full in the knowledge that the chances of Blair losing and having to face the ignominy of having to resign were very slight indeed.
That was and certainly is true. But there was another side of the parliamentary vote. Although referred to as the mother of all parliaments, the House of Commons at its worst can be an insult to all the supposed values and principles which it is meant to uphold. While its very worst days have since passed, mainly because drunkenness is no longer acceptable any form while at the despatch box, the most well-known incident being when Clare Short accused Alan Clark of being inebriated and had to leave the chamber rather than the philanderer and historian himself, the "Punch and Judy" side of parliamentary politics continues, and while it would be a poorer place if it was to disappear entirely, few would mourn the loss of Tory MPs sarcastically going "awww" when Gerald Kaufman spoke recently of his relatives who died in the Holocaust.
All those things that detract from Westminster and make individuals cynical about politics were almost entirely absent on that Tuesday. Yes, Blair was almost as messianic as he had ever been, referring laughably now to the links between Saddam and al-Qaida, dismissing the Liberal Democrats as "unified, as ever, in opportunism and error", scaremongering about the possibility of a dirty bomb and shamefully blaming France for promising a veto whatever the circumstances, something Chirac never did, but he was always a sideshow, regardless of how some newspapers continued to describe him as impressive and that he felt the argument was swinging his way, something that only properly occurred in the bounce after the beginning of war.
The real meat was amongst the backbenchers who so powerfully intervened, making their arguments felt while some of them wrestled with their consciences like they never had before and never have since, as the two Labour MPs featured in the 10 days to war short admitted tonight on Newsnight. With the hindsight we now have, it's easy to make the exact arguments against why the war should never have taken place, and many of us viscerally did beforehand, but reading the MPs themselves that stood up and subjected themselves to mockery, especially among the egregiously pro-war press and those that honestly believed it was going to be a cakewalk still deserve credit. The ex-father of the house and much missed Tam Dalyell was first up, saying that the bombs would be "a recruiting sergeant" for the next generation of Islamic extremists. Nor he nor the rest of us could possibly have known how right he would be subsequently proved. He was followed by Peter Kilfoyle, John Denham, another of the individuals who resigned, Alex Salmond, one of the few Tories to vote against, John Randall, Tony Worthington, who also presciently described Iraq as having the complexity of the Balkans, and many others.
None of them however reached the simplicity but also the strength of the speech by the one man who has come out of the whole debacle the best, and his intervention was in actual fact the day before. In parts moving, honourable and disapproving, Robin Cook made the address that spoke for so many in the country that had been denied a voice, that weren't with any particular side, but simply didn't think that the case for war had been made. While since then we've endlessly discussed the lies and the deceptions, Cook simply took apart every single argument that had been made, and did so effortlessly. Whatever you thought of how he treated his wife after Alastair Campbell in effect made him chose between her and his mistress, his death in 2005 deprived us of one of the great parliamentarians who may well otherwise have since been trying desperately to redirect the Labour party away from the dead-end of Blairism.
As said yesterday, this should be Iraq's week, rather than Iraq week, but if there is even the slightest good to come out of the last five years, it's that the parliamentary vote set a precedent for the public, even if only through their elected representatives, to have their voice heard over the matters of war and peace. No prime minister could now justify ordering military action without a similar vote being passed, and the reform programmes proposed from all sides all recognise that this is now the case. If we cannot learn from the lessons of the past five years when we next have to consider a similar situation, then there will remain but one thing to do with parliament - close it down.
Labels: Iraq, Iraq disaster, Iraq five years on, Iraq week, parliament
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