Blair says Commons vote is unnecessary for attack on Iraq

Tony Blair fuelled simmering discontent among Labour MPs yesterday when he made it clear that Britain could back an attack on Iraq without a fresh mandate from the UN or a vote in Parliament.

Speaking at his second set-piece press conference at Downing Street, the Prime Minister said action against Saddam Hussein was "not imminent" but he made no effort to rule it out.

In the wide-ranging, 90-minute briefing, Mr Blair also stressed that plummeting stock markets would not affect his determination to join the euro and admitted that the UK military base in Gibraltar could be shared with Spain.

Labour backbenchers have warned that any British support for a US-backed invasion of Iraq would trigger the biggest rebellion Mr Blair has faced since he became leader.

The issue dominated Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday when three Labour MPs, including the former defence minister Peter Kilfoyle, urged Mr Blair to consult the Commons before any strikes.

But Mr Blair insisted yesterday that he would follow previous practice on action in Kosovo and Afghanistan, where MPs were not given a vote beforehand. Asked why he had consistently declined to promise such a vote, Mr Blair said: "Because it's important that if we do get to that situation that we follow the precedents there have always been ... I am not going to pin myself at this stage to any specific form of consultation.

"I actually think we are all getting a bit ahead of ourselves on the issue of Iraq. As I have said before, action is not imminent; we are not at the point of decision yet."

Mr Blair added that Rowan Williams, the incoming Archbishop of Canterbury, was "perfectly entitled" to say he could not support military action unless it was sanctioned by a new UN resolution.

Any action would be taken in accordance with international law, but President Saddam had already breached 23 UN resolutions, many of which covered weapons of mass destruction, he said.

The Iraqi regime's arms programme was uncovered during the Gulf war and extensively documented by inspectors before their expulsion, according to Mr Blair:

"We can publish more evidence later and if it is appropriate we will. But actually there is already an enormous amount of accumulated evidence of what Iraq was up to," he said.

As if to underline his commitment to military action, Mr Blair said he was sceptical as to whether the efforts of the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, to persuade the Iraqis to readmit weapons inspectors would succeed. "The omens don't look very good frankly. The issue is: is there any point in reviving those negotiations; I don't know, because it seems somewhat unlikely that the Iraqis intend to comply with it."

Labour backbench MP Paul Flynn said Mr Blair's remarks were "very worrying to many Labour MPs and to people outside politics". He told Radio 4's World at One: "We might be engaging in a war, not with a man who lives in a cave, but with the leader of a sophisticated modern state and who certainly possesses, if not nuclear weapons, then biological and chemical weapons." He said Mr Blair would be wise to listen to Dr Williams rather than President Bush.

During the 90-minute question-and-answer session, the Prime Minister said that falling stock markets would not affect his assessment of Britain's entry to the euro.

The "fundamentals" of the argument would not be influenced by the state of stocks and shares, just as they were not affected by the fluctuations in the currency markets, he said.

Scotching suggestions that he had abandoned having a referendum on the euro until after the next general election, Mr Blair said he was not in favour of a "rolling" review of the five economic tests if they were not met by next June.

On a lighter note, Mr Blair admitted that he was not as radical today as he had been in his youth. He was no less idealistic but he was more pragmatic, he said.