ALEX Salmond says the establishment have closed ranks over the war in Iraq, after a cross-party attempt to have Tony Blair investigated for misleading Parliament was defeated in the Commons.

Labour MPs turned out in force to defend their old leader, defeating the motion, put forward by Salmond, by 439 votes to 70.

MPs from seven parties, including the SNP, had backed the debate, which called for Parliament to investigate accusations the former Prime Minister had misled the Commons.

That motion said the Chilcot inquiry, “provided substantial evidence of misleading information being presented by the then Prime Minister and others on the development of the then Government’s policy towards the invasion of Iraq”.

In his opening speech, Salmond said that the inquiry had proved Blair had committed to joining George W Bush in Iraq regardless of the evidence about Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction.

“Through the long debates on Iraq, many of us suspected that the Prime Minister had given commitments to the American President which were unrevealed to this House and to the public,” Salmond told MPs. He added: “The Chilcot report outlined these in spades. The famous phrase, ‘I will be with you, whatever’ will go down in infamy in terms of giving a commitment. Chilcot says that after giving such a commitment it would be virtually impossible for the Prime Minister to withdraw from it.”

The debate had caused consternation for Labour, with the party’s MPs asking the leadership to impose a three-line whip in opposition to the motion.

Jeremy Corbyn, a long-time opponent of the war, overruled that stance instead placing a one-line whip on his backbenchers, effectively making voting voluntary.

Corbyn didn’t turn up to cast his own vote, a spokeswoman said he was attending a “longstanding engagement” in his constituency.

The Iraq Inquiry, led by Sir John Chilcot, was established by Gordon Brown in the dying days of his administration and was supposed to take two years. It took seven, with the report published last July.

Chilcot said the former Prime Minister had overstated the threat posed by Saddam, had not exhausted all peaceful options for disarmament, that British forces were ill-prepared troops going into battle and Blair had “wholly inadequate” plans for the aftermath. Labour MPs repeatedly heckled Salmond, and argued that Blair had not lied.

Labour MP Joan Ryan, said: “On my reading of Chilcot, it says there was no falsification or improper use of intelligence, there was no misleading of cabinet and no secret commitment to war. Sadly, I think the only deception is in this motion and its opportunistic nature does not serve this issue or this Parliament well.”

Ian Austin, the former Scottish Labour spin doctor who worked for Gordon Brown at the time of the Iraq War, defended Blair: “Whether SNP members like it or not, the truth is that Chilcot rejected allegations that Tony Blair said one thing in public and another in private.

“People can be for or against the war, but it is not true to say that Tony Blair lied about it. We have heard repeatedly this afternoon Sir John Chilcot’s response to the question when he absolved Tony Blair of any attempt to mislead or lie.”

Caroline Lucas, the co-leader of the Green Party, urged the Labour leadership to vote in favour of the motion for the sake of the country. “If we do nothing following the seven-year, £10 million inquiry and take no steps towards accountability for the clear evidence that the former Prime Minister was fixing the evidence around the policy to go to war, it will be almost impossible to begin to restore the faith that has been lost in our political system.”

Speaking to The National afterwards, Salmond said it was clear there had been a stitch up.

“The establishment always wanted to talk this out because they are scared stiff of creating a precedent that prime ministers are held to account. That’s why Chilcot was set up, not to apportion blame, as we know from the recent FOI releases.

“It was set up not to rule on the legality of the conflict, and that’s why there was no judge on the enquiry. All these things were done to talk it out for as long as possible and to avoid responsibility and accountability.”

This he said would mean there was “nothing stopping a future prime minister making the same blunder, the same mistakes as Blair did in 2003”.

The former First Minister admitted to The National that this was likely the end of his efforts to have Blair held to account by Parliament.

“I don’t see any obvious routes. This whole sorry saga, disaster opened with a Labour-Tory stitch-up and finishes as a Tory-Labour stitch up.

“That’s why they’re doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past.”