Clare Short presented the bill to Parliament on 22 June 2005, supported by senior politicians from all three major parties including William Hague, Ken Clarke, Ming Campbell and Alex Salmond, and received its first reading.

It failed to pass the second reading, and move on to committee stage, because it was talked-out (discussed until there was no time left).

[3] It was argued by David Burrowes during the debate of the second reading that the bill was a "Trojan horse for voicing disapproval about going to war in Iraq".

[1] Making his first speech to the House of Commons as Prime Minister, Gordon Brown proposed reforms which would have delivered the heart of this Bill.

Nothing in this act would stop a member of the British Armed Forces from following a lawful command or following established rules of engagement in order to take immediate defence.