Chilcot finally gets a publication date. But what does it mean for Labour’s summer?

The much-anticipated Chilcot report investigating the UK’s intervention in Iraq in 2003 and its outcomes will be published on the 6 July.

The report, authored by John Chilcot, is anticipated to be highly critical of Tony Blair’s decision to use British troops in the American-led efforts against Saddam Hussein. At the time Blair claimed Saddam Hussein’s regime had access of weapons of mass destruction which have subsequently been widely discredited.

The inquiry was launched in 2009 and has seven years to complete. It is expected to be 2.6 million words long – the equivalent of reading all of Shakespeare’s plays back to back over three times in a row.

The British military was present in the nation for six years, even though Hussein was deposed within the first few months, due to the absence of planning that would provide a stable government.

In his first speech as Labour leader in 2010 Ed Miliband said he regarded the decision to go to war as “wrong”. Current leader Jeremy Corbyn has long spoken out against the decision, describing it as a “catastrophic decision” and asking: “Why did Blair get so close to Bush we ended up in an illegal war in Iraq we’re still paying the price for to this day?”

During the Labour leadership contest, Corbyn said that “We don’t have to wait for Chilcot to know that mistakes were made and we need to make amends.”

Last summer it was reported that Corbyn would make an official apology on behalf of the Labour Party for the Iraq War in his acceptance speech as leader. However, sources later said that he had decided to wait until the publication of Chilcot, which until recently had been expected in June.

The series of delays in publication is understood to be the result of negotiations concerning what material would remain classified and omitted from the final report.

The issue inspired the largest protect in UK political history, in which 500,000 people demonstrated outside Westminster to discourage Blair from using UK troops in the intervention.

The report will be released shortly after Corbyn’s report into anti-Semitism, to be released in late June, and a fortnight after the EU referendum. It will likely coincide with debates regarding Trident in the run up to the Commons vote on the weapons system’s renewal, as well as Emily Thornberry’s report from the party’s defence review. All could cause Labour problems over the summer.