It would have been “politically impossible” to stop President Bush from invading Iraq, as he believed he was on a “crusade against evil”, new records show.

Newly declassified UK government files show Sir Tony Blair was warned by his US ambassador that George W Bush was determined to overthrow dictator Saddam Hussein, in the months before the invasion of Iraq.

Sir Tony, who was prime minister at the time, was trying to encourage the US president to use diplomatic means to change the situation in the Middle Eastern country, and flew to Camp David in January 2003 to make the case, just two months before the joint US-UK invasion.

The UK government was also hoping the United Nations Security Council would agree a new resolution specifically authorising the use of military force against Iraq.

But the files, made public for the first time, show that Sir Tony’s ambassador, Sir Christopher Meyer, warned him it would be “politically impossible” to sway Mr Bush away from an invasion unless Hussein surrendered.

The documents, released by the National Archives at Kew in west London, show Sir Christopher also wrote that Mr Bush believed himself to be on “a crusade against evil to be undertaken by God’s chosen people”.

Sir Tony’s foreign policy adviser, Sir David Manning, told the PM that when he met Mr Bush, he should make the point that a new diplomatic resolution was “politically essential for the UK, and almost certainly legally essential as well”.

But the White House was becoming increasingly impatient at the unwillingness of France and Russia – both of whom held a veto – to agree a resolution so long as UN inspectors were unable to find any evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, the supposed justification for war.

Sir Christopher warned Sir Tony shortly before his visit to see Mr Bush in January 2003 that options for a peaceful solution in Iraq had effectively run out.

He wrote: “It is politically impossible for Bush to back down from going to war in Iraq this spring, absent Saddam’s surrender or disappearance from the scene.

“If Bush had any room for manoeuvre beforehand this was closed off by his State of the Union speech.

“In the high-flown prose to which Bush is drawn on these set-piece occasions, he said in effect that destroying Saddam is a crusade against evil to be undertaken by God’s chosen people.”

In a cable sent the previous month, Sir Christopher said that much of the impulse for deposing Hussein was coming from the president, a born-again Christian, who was scornful of what he saw as the “self-serving” reservations of the Europeans.

“His view of the world is Manichean. He sees his mission as ridding it of evil-doers. He believes American values should be universal values,” Sir Christopher stated.

“He is strongly allergic to Europeans collectively. Anyone who has sat round a dinner table with low-church Southerners will find these sentiments instantly recognisable.”

In the end, Sir Tony and Mr Bush abandoned efforts to get a new Security Council resolution, blaming French President Jacques Chirac for refusing, and launched the invasion of Iraq anyway.

Lobbying from Mandelson and anger at the French

Among the new files, there are also a number of other revelations. These include:

• Current UK ambassador to the US, Sir Peter Mandelson, was so desperate to get back into government following his second resignation from Sir Tony’s government that he asked Lord Birt, a policy adviser to Downing Street, to write to the prime minister in 2003, asking for him to receive a role – four months before Sir Peter was appointed as the UK’s next European commissioner
• Sir Tony was furious at French president Jacques Chirac’s efforts to undermine pressure being put on Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe by the UK in 2003, over growing violence caused by a policy of driving the remaining white farmers from their lands in the African nation
• The prime minister also insisted on changing the rules around which parties can lay wreaths at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday in a bid to protect the Northern Irish peace process in 2004, despite warning this could create an “adverse reaction” from the SNP and Plaid Cymru

People smugglers face having their assets frozen and being banned from entering the UK, the foreign secretary has announced.

David Lammy said new powers under the Sanctions Act will allow the UK to freeze the assets of anyone complicit in smuggling illegal migrants into the country.

They can also be banned from travelling to the UK.

The first wave of sanctions on smuggling gangs and their enablers will be imposed on Wednesday.

Mr Lammy said it is the “world’s first sanctions regime” targeted at smuggling gangs.

Gang leaders, small boat suppliers, people making and selling fake passports and middlemen facilitating payments by migrants through hawala networks (informal systems for transferring money) will all be targeted this week.

They will be publicly named on a sanctions list, making it illegal for the UK financial system to engage with them.

By using the Sanctions Act, the government said it can target the smuggling gangs wherever they are in the world, including where law enforcement and criminal justice approaches cannot reach.

Labour’s manifesto promised to “smash the gangs”, but the first half of 2025 has seen a record number of small boat crossings, with about 20,000 from January to June – the highest ever in that period, and 48% more than the first half of 2024.

Earlier this month, the UK and France announced a pilot scheme under which migrants arriving in the UK illegally from France will be returned and a legitimate asylum seeker will be able to come to the UK. They did not say how many would be returned each week, but the suggestion was 50.

On the latest sanctions, Foreign Secretary David Lammy said: “For too long, criminal gangs have been lining their corrupt pockets and preying on the hopes of vulnerable people with impunity as they drive irregular migration to the UK. We will not accept this status quo.

“It is our moral duty and a key part of our Plan for Change to do all we can to smash these gangs and secure Britain’s borders.

“That’s why the UK has created the world’s first sanctions regime targeted at gangs involved in people smuggling and driving irregular migration, as well as their enablers.

“From tomorrow, those involved will face having their assets frozen, being shut off from the UK financial system and banned from travelling to the UK.”

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said the sanctions send a “clear message that there is no hiding place for those who exploit vulnerable people and put lives at risk for profit”.