On 10 February 2003, father of the House Tam Dalyell was thrown out of the commons for accusing the government of misleading parliament over the case for war with Iraq. Dalyell was reported to be the first father of the House, the longest continuously serving MP, to be ordered to leave the chamber.

The incident followed a report from Channel 4 News that a No 10 dossier, entitled Iraq – Its Infrastructure of Concealment, Deception and Intimidation, lifted large parts uncredited from an American student’s 12-year-old PhD thesis. The so-called “dodgy dossier”, issued to journalists on 3 February 2003, was among the resources used by the Blair government to justify military action against Iraq.

Alastair Campbell, the government’s head of communications, and his Downing Street team were reported to be largely responsible for putting together the dossier. (Campbell later conceded it was a “mistake” not to cite the 12-year-old PhD thesis in the dossier.)

***

Addressing the House of Commons on 10 February, Dalyell said his point of order concerned the “misleading of parliament and the people.”

He added: “Surely plagiarising an out of date PhD thesis and presenting it as an official report of the latest British intelligence information reveals a lack of awareness of the disastrous consequences of such deception.”

Dalyell warned that the document could form the “basis of whether or not this country goes to war”. He called for “at the very least, a clarification” from a senior minister.

The point of order came after the House of Commons speaker, Michael Martin, had refused to allow an emergency debate on the issue. Martin said that he did not “appreciate it when, after an application has been refused, the subject is then raised on a point of order.”

Among the other MPs to criticise Martin’s ruling were Glenda Jackson (Labour), Peter Lilley (Conservative) and Paul Tyler (Liberal Democrat).

Martin insisted that he was not responsible for the “utterances of the prime minister or any other minister, and nor am I responsible for documents that are placed in the library or given out anywhere else.”

Dalyell, speaking on a second point of order, said the issue “dwarfs etiquette” and that it was a “matter of trust and deceit”.

Reiterating his call for an emergency debate, the veteran Labour said parliament had been “deceived and the British people have been deceived not on a trivial matter, but on a matter that is the basis of peace and war.”

Dalyell declared: “We are on a motorway without exit to war, and the basis that has been produced – by a PhD student in California, who now says that he is against conflict – is apparently the heart of what purports to be the intelligence briefing of the British government.”

He added: “The business of the day is trivial compared to the question of peace and war.”

Dalyell ultimately refused more than 10 instructions from Martin to resume his seat.

The speaker warned Dalyell that he was in a situation where he needed to “tell the honourable gentleman to withdraw.”

Dalyell responded that he did not wish to cause the speaker any “embarrassment” and left the chamber.

The speaker’s office later clarified that Dalyell was not officially suspended.

Sir Nicolas Bevan, the speaker’s secretary said: “The speaker asked him to return to his seat and he did not.

“The speaker said he was on ‘dangerous territory’, which was a gentle warning and that did not work, and the speaker then gave him a warning that if he persisted then the speaker would have no option but to ask him to withdraw.

“At that point, Mr Dalyell threw in the towel and left.”

Dalyell disputed the official account, saying he believed he had been instructed to leave the Palace of Westminster for the rest of the day.

The veteran Labour MP had some form in this regard. He was previously suspended from the commons in May 1984 after he accused the then prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, of “lying” to the commons over the sinking of the Belgrano during the Falklands War.

On this occasion, Dalyell, who consistently campaigned for an inquiry into the incident, cited a Panorama interview featuring Cecil Parkinson, the former cabinet minister. Dalyell argued that Parkinson’s comments proved that Thatcher new of a proposed Peruvian peace plan at the time of the sinking.

The Labour MP stated this had the “clear implication that the prime minister was lying.” Upon being challenged by the speaker, Dalyell said his point was a “matter of fact, not supposition”.

A motion to suspend Dalyell from the House was approved by 196 votes to 33.

It was Dalyell’s view that Thatcher ordered the sinking of the Belgrano to undermine peace talks.

***

On 25 February 2003, shortly after Dalyell’s intervention, the US and the UK submitted a draft resolution to the UN arguing that Iraq had missed its “final opportunity” to disarm peacefully. France, Germany and Russia submitted a rival proposal to the council calling for further weapons inspections as an alternative to military action.

In the face of opposition, Britain, the United States and Spain abandoned the draft resolution.

On 17 March, the US president, George Bush, gave Iraq leader Saddam Hussein and his sons 48 hours to leave Iraq or face war.

MPs voted in favour of authorising military action on 18 March. The invasion of Iraq – Operation Iraqi Freedom – began on 20 March 2003.

On 6 July 2016, the findings of the Iraq Inquiry, chaired by Sir John Chilcot, were published after seven years of investigation. The 2.6 million-word report – longer than the King James Version of the Bible, the complete works of William Shakespeare, and Tolstoy’s War and Peace put together – provided a searing indictment of the intelligence failures, shaky legal rationale, miscalculations, inadequate military preparation and exaggerated public statements that led to the UK’s involvement in the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Chilcot did not reach a view on the legality of the war, saying this could only be assessed by a “properly constituted and internationally recognised court”. But the report found “that the circumstances in which it was decided that there was a legal basis for UK military action were far from satisfactory.”