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Peter Kilfoyle (Lab, Liverpool Walton), moving the rebel amendment that stated that the case for war with Iraq had not yet been established, abandoned his notes and responded instead to the case for war set out by Mr Blair. He called this the type of issue that arose once in a generation and that transcended many normal ties in political parties, of friendship, even within families because the decisions at stake were so tremendous.

He accepted that Mr Blair was a man of conviction, but said that so were others in the Commons who disagreed, and suggested that their opinions were based on facts rather than “assertions”. Mr Kilfoyle said: “With their convictions and examinations of the facts, as opposed to the collection of assertions, value-judgments and interpretations which seem to make up the Government’s case, they draw very, very different conclusions.”

Agreeing that Britain faces a threat of terrorism, he asked: “Does not that point out the idiocy of fighting the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time against the wrong enemy. We are having a 19th-century gunboat war in the Gulf when the real dangers of terrorism should be isolated and dealt with as the first priority.”

Referring to the Prime Minister’s assertion of a loose link between terrorist groups and tyrannical states with weapons programmes, Mr Kilfoyle said one thing guaranteed to harden such links was “the manifest failure to deal with the underlying cause, which has given us the terrorism and has given us the situation in Iraq in the first place”.

The road map to the Middle East peace process had been torpedoed within days by Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Prime Minister, who insisted that he would not accept a Palestinian state. Mr Kilfoyle said he believed that war with Iraq would be illegal, immoral and illogical and that Saddam did not have the capability to attack Britain. He concluded: “(Britain and America’s) impatience will reap a whirlwind, a whirlwind which will affect us and our generation for years to come.”

Charles Kennedy, the Liberal Democrat leader, was given a particularly hostile reception from the Conservative benches as he declared himself “unpersuaded” of the case for war. He told the Commons: “There stands no contradiction between giving voice to legitimate anxiety and at the same time, as and when exchange of fire commences, looking to the rest of the country, as well as all of us in the House, to give full moral support to our forces.”

In one of a series of interventions, Sir Patrick Cormack (C, South Staffordshire) asked him if the Liberal Democrats would support the Government if the rebel amendment was lost. Mr Kennedy said they would not. This prompted sustained barracking from the Tory benches, during which the Speaker, Michael Martin, ordered Cheryl Gillan (C, Chesham and Amersham), a Conservative whip, to stand and withdraw a remark she had shouted at Mr Kennedy.

Mr Duncan Smith then intervened, suggesting that Liberal Democrat frontbench spokesmen had issued conflicting statements on whether war with Iraq would be illegal. Menzies Campbell, the foreign affairs spokesman, had said that no further resolution was required for the use of force yet Lord Goodhart, a legal spokesman, said Resolution 1441 did not authorise force.

Mr Kennedy replied that the remarks by Mr Campbell were made last September and had been overtaken by events. He then launched his own attack on the Conservatives, saying that they had sold weapons of mass destruction, including anthrax and other chemical weapons, to Saddam after he gassed Kurds at Halabja in 1988, and approved the construction of dual-use factories in Iraq. Mr Kennedy said: “We do not need moral lectures from the Conservative Party.”

This drew fierce protests from the Tory benches. Crispin Blunt (C, Reigate) raised a point of order saying that this was false and Peter Lilley (C, Hitchen and Harpenden), a former Trade Secretary, tried repeatedly to intervene. The Speaker finally told Mr Lilley he was disrupting the speech.

Mr Kennedy said it was “a source of great regret” that Britain stood on the brink of war, but he praised Mr Blair for persuading President Bush to try to act through the UN route and for consistently pressing for progress on the Middle East peace process. He said, however, that there was great concern that since President Bush had abandoned the UN process he might do the same with seeking peace in the Middle East.

Mr Kennedy added: “I have never once been persuaded as to the causal link between the Iraqi regime, al-Qaeda and September 11. I do believe the impact of war under these circumstances is bound to weaken the international coalition against terrorism itself, not least in the Muslim world.”

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