The Iraq War, British Justice & ‘Sir’ Tony Blair. Unfinished business
There is, rightly in my view, considerable protest at the decision to make Tony Blair a Knight of the Garter. It’s the highest form of Knighthood restricted to 24 living people and granted by the Queen rather than the PM. The convention is that former PMs in due course are elevated but there has been media speculation that the non-appointment of Blair was holding up eventual advancement for Dave Cameron…
It should never have come to this and the reality that it has tells us something about British justice.
In the wake of Ghislaine Maxwell being found guilty of various charges last week by a New York jury several UK commentators have wondered whether such a case would ever have come to trial in the UK. The French justice system prosecutes former senior politicians for alleged wrong doings but this has rarely been a feature of British justice.
The biggest demonstration in British history against the Iraq War on 15th February 2003 continues to have an influence on the politics of the present, perhaps not least because Blair is still active politically.
Gordon Brown set up the Chilcott Inquiry into the Iraq War which held hearings between 2009 and 2011. Sir John Chilcott (who died in October 2021) did not report until 2016 when the then PM Dave Cameron decided it was all in the past and nothing needed to be done.
The Guardian’s view of Chilcott was that it ‘could hardly have been more damning of Tony Blair’ but Blair himself claimed he had acted in ‘good faith’. The fact that the original war was illegal and its impact continues to cause significant global issues today remains unacted on.
The point being that Blair should have faced a Court after Chilcott (The Inquiry itself didn’t have the status of a Court of Law) either in the UK or at the Hague and if he had done the issue of him being appointed a Knight of the Garter would probably have never arisen.
The fact that it has will simply underline that the Iraq War, and the millions who died as a result, remains unfinished business in British politics and life in general.
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