MPs organising the campaign to impeach Tony Blair believe they have enough support to force a highly damaging Commons investigation into the Prime Minister's pre-war conduct.
A renewed attempt to impeach Blair over claims he misled parlia ment in making his case for war against Iraq, will be made in the Commons within the next two weeks.
The impeachment process effectively stalled last year when just 23 MPs signed a Commons motion. But the scale of the government's defeat on its anti-terror legislation last week - where 49 Labour MPs rebelled - has galvanised the momentum for proceedings to be invoked.
Organisers say they are expecting 200 cross-party signatures, including those of former government ministers, to force the Commons to set up a Privy Council investigation that would examine in detail the case for impeachment against Blair.
The size of the Labour revolt, allied to unified opposition benches, is said to have changed the climate inside the Commons.
SNP leader, Alex Salmond, one of the key figures in the impeachment campaign, said he now believed that the cross-party attempt to bring the government to account over the Iraq war "would become more urgent than predicted problems associated with social legislation in England and Wales".
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