November 20, 2004 - The parliamentary motion to impeach Tony Blair for "gross misconduct" over the war against Iraq will be published next Wednesday, the day after the Queen's speech.

It will be the first to be tabled in 198 years, since Lord Melville, a close friend of the then prime minister, William Pitt the younger, faced impeachment for misusing public money in running the Admiralty.

Senior parliamentary officials, including legal advisers to the Commons Speaker, Michael Martin, on Wednesday night approved the wording of the text as meeting parliamentary rules, allowing the motion to be tabled on the first day of the new session. The Tory chief whip, David Maclean, has paged every Tory frontbench MP telling them not to sign it.

The Liberal Democrats are divided, with Jenny Tonge, the MP for Richmond, among those supporting the idea and Sir Menzies Campbell, the party's foreign affairs spokesman, strongly opposing it. No Labour MP is expected to sign the motion for fear of losing the party whip for bringing the leader into disrepute.

The motion, which was drawn up by Douglas Hogg, the MP for Sleaford and North Hykeham and son of the former Tory lord chancellor Lord Hailsham, is attracting support among backbench MPs who would not normally support the same cause.

The latest recruits among the 25 backing the call are George Galloway, the deselected Labour MP for Glasgow Kelvin, who is suing the Daily Telegraph for libel over allegations he took money from Saddam Hussein, and John Gummer, the former Tory environment secretary and MP for Suffolk Coastal.

Adam Price, the Plaid Cymru MP who launched the campaign for the motion, said yesterday: "This is the only way left to MPs to call the prime minister to account over his conduct in the war against Iraq."