Europe

Last week, the British National Archives published new Blair government documents.

Here is what we can learn.

UK pushed US to delay Iraq invasion over fears Tony Blair would lose power

Britain asked the United States to delay invading Iraq in 2003 over fears that then Prime Minister Sir Tony Blair would lose power as a result of a large-scale military campaign, according to newly released UK government documents.

“The US must not promote regime change in Baghdad at the price of regime change in London,” wrote Sir David Manning, foreign policy adviser to Blair at the time, in a report on a three-hour meeting he held with his counterpart Condoleezza Rice in January 2003.

In a separate file, Sir Christopher Meyer, then British ambassador to Washington, criticised the Bush administration’s handling of the run-up to war.

In a 2002 US annual review, Meyer said the US had been “ill-served by its rhetoric: at times high-flown, neo-imperialist, moralising, unilateralist, bellicose”.

The push for war had been driven by “factions within the Washington elite, playing on a receptive president”, and had not initially enjoyed broad support among the US public, he added.

https://www.ft.com/content/27ae17b9-b13b-4d44-b6b7-307b1dc6da40

David Blunkett personally warned Blair of ‘explosive’ research into immigration attitudes in 2004.

Lord David Blunkett warned Tony Blair in 2004 that Home Office research into voter attitudes towards immigration and asylum “could be explosive” if published.

The Home Secretary told the prime minister that focus groups showed the British public believed Britain’s borders were “completely open and overrun”

Anti-migrant views were “held fairly consistently across all ethnic groups and all age groups” the document said, with even established immigrant communities expressing hostility.

The findings on migration “could be explosive in the wrong hands” and should be circulated only “in strict confidence”, Lord Blunkett told Blair.

https://www.ft.com/content/934a1830-c54c-4532-b484-38d5cff60a73

The Blair clothes

Tony Blair and his wife Cherie received tens of thousands of pounds in discounts on designer clothing while in Downing Street, documents show.

Between July 2001 and December 2002, Mrs Blair bought clothes worth more than £75,000 – equivalent to £150,000 today – but paid just £31,000 for them.

Downing Street officials were worried these benefits would have to be declared under a new ministerial code, which was then coming into effect, and advised the Blairs to repay thousands of pounds. It is not clear from the papers if this happened.

Sir Tony, who was prime minister between 1997 and 2007, also benefited from a 25% discount from Paul Smith, famous for his suits.

“In terms of public perception,” wrote No 10 private secretary Clare Sumner, “the amounts involved are quite large”.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0ep09el7jwo

Australia asked Tony Blair to avoid meeting ‘troublemaker’ 1999 Indigenous delegation

Tony Blair’s government was privately lobbied by Australia not to meet representatives of Indigenous communities who were described as “troublemakers”.

A memo written by Blair’s foreign affairs adviser, John Sawers, reveal the level of angst within government circles about the trip

“>The Australians are pretty wound up about the idea of you seeing the Aborigines at all,” Sawers wrote in a note to Blair.

"Their high commissioner rang me to press you not to see them: they were troublemakers – it would be like [the then Australian prime minister] John Howard seeing people from Northern Ireland who were trying to stir up problems for the UK.”

The memo suggested: “Can’t we plead diary problems?” while the word “yes” is written in answer to this, in handwriting that resembles that of Blair.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/jul/22/australia-pressed-tony-blair-to-avoid-meeting-troublemaker-1999-indigenous-delegation-archives-reveal