Oxford City Council will not become the first local authority to call for Tony Blair to be impeached -- despite impassioned pleas to do just that.

The council would have been the first in the country to sign a document calling for the Prime Minister to be held accountable for the Iraq war and subsequent loss of life.

But after a debate it was decided the council chamber was not the place to discuss international affairs.

Oxford University student and Green group deputy leader Matthew Sellwood called for Oxford East MP Andrew Smith's resignation and impeachment alongside Tony Blair, but his motion was lost.

At a city council meeting last night (November 22), he was close to tears explaining how an estimated 100,000 civilians had been killed during the conflict.

He also admitted breaking in to RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire to sit on the runway to protest against the war and to disrupt bombing missions by American B52 planes stationed there. All Mr Smith had to do, he said, was resign.

Mr Sellwood made reference to Mr Smith's refusal to publicly state whether Mr Blair enjoys his unequivocal support, a question posed by the Oxford Mail on Saturday following the revelation that the Oxford Labour Party had passed a motion calling for the Prime Minister's resignation.

Mr Sellwood said: "This is not a joke, this is deadly serious because we are talking about innocent lives being lost.

"Smith was a member of the cabinet of the Government that took us to war -- his silence is what led, in some part at least, to this war. This is our Vietnam -- the time when silence is betrayal is now."

Other cities about to debate similar motions include Norwich and Brighton & Hove.

Prior to the debate a handful of demonstrators from the Oxford Network for Global Justice and Peace collected about 500 signatures calling for Mr Blair's impeachment and protested outside the Town Hall.

Nuala Young, who co-ordinated the event, said: "All the money that has gone to the war could have gone to hospitals and education.

"We are saying we don't like the way indiscriminate weapons have been used in an urban environment.

"When we were leafletting in the street people were racing across to sign because even a year after the war started people are still very angry."

Green group leader Craig Simmons's motion, which called for the city council to put its name to the Cities for Impeachment campaign, was also lost, with every Labour city councillor present voting against it.

Mr Simmons said: "The worst thing a government can do is lead a country to war on false pretences.

"Blair asserted in 2002 that Iraq had stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and he told us that the war was combating terrorism.

"The fact is that Blair has led us in a war that has cost 100,000 civilian lives and most individuals killed by the coalition forces have been women and children."

Cowley Marsh Liberal Democrat councillor Sajjad Malik, who voted for the motion, added: "We all feel angry that innocent people are dying in the streets, but this is not the place to put these motions -- that is for Parliament."