Latest news with #JonathanPowell
The National
16 hours ago
- Politics
- The National
Is Jonathan Powell the UK's most influential diplomat?
He was brought into government to deal with the handover of the Chagos Islands, but within months Jonathan Powell became a near ubiquitous figure in UK diplomacy. The former chief of staff for Tony Blair left office after 10 years in 2007 but is now back as National Security Adviser, involved in issues ranging from the war in Ukraine, Bangladesh's corruption probe and Palestinian statehood recognition. Mr Powell, who led the Good Friday negotiations on Northern Ireland, was appointed by Prime Minister Keir Starmer in November last year. The experienced diplomat, who led his own conflict mediation charity until his appointment to government in 2024, appears to have quietly taken on a central role normally reserved for the foreign secretary. In the Middle East, Powell plays a more important role than David Lammy Turkish diplomatic source It was Mr Powell who met Bangladesh's interim leader Muhammad Yunus during his first official visit to the UK last month. He was in Istanbul the week that the PKK announced its intention to disarm, where he was pictured with the high-level delegation from Ukraine as it arrived for peace talks with Russia. He had been in Kyiv days before to meet President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Ahead of the now-cancelled UN peace summit on Israel-Palestine, Mr Powell was tasked with briefing MPs about the UK's future recognition of the Palestinian state. In the Middle East, his track record borders on the mythical. It is said that he persuaded the PKK to dissolve, and that he whispered the values of western governance to an obscure Islamist rebel years before he became Ahmad Al Shara, President of Syria. Former close colleagues of Mr Powell are now acting in an advisory role as the fledging administration finds it feet in Damascus. 'Jonathan Powell played an important role in terms of dealing with these very sensitive issues,' said a Turkish source. 'He is like a foreign minister. In the Middle East, Powell plays a more important role than David Lammy.' A former UK diplomat who served across the Middle East agreed. 'Yes,' they told The National, when asked whether Mr Powell could be the UK's unofficial foreign secretary. Well-networked, well-travelled, Mr Powell navigates the UK's overseas matters seamlessly. Unburdened by politics as an elected MP would be, he can take more risks. Mr Powell's charity Inter/Mediate, which he co-founded in 2011, played key mediation roles in the Turkish conflict with the PKK, and the rebel-led opposition government of Idlib before the toppling of president Bashar Al Assad last year. Mr Powell reportedly met Mr Al Shara in May 2021, in person. Mr Powell stepped down from the charity after his return to government and there is no suggestion that he has been involved in Inter/Mediate since then. Severing links with a charity in UK law means the former executive has no remaining interest in the operation. The latest accounts filed to the Charity Commission show the company's assets had grown to £1,625,316 from £668,745 a year earlier. It had increased its employees by two to 13 and adopted an investment plan of up to £1.75 million in the business over five years. It said it had exceeded its fundraising targets and gained from a 'greater commitment from the [Foreign Office] through a new partnership agreement with the Office of Conflict and Stabilisation'. An examination of Inter/Mediate's involvement in conflicts in the Middle East shows the legacy of 'third rail diplomacy' that Mr Powell has brought with him into the National Security Adviser role. It raises questions about the influence that former New Labour figures play in Mr Starmer's government. Many of them were brought in to fill key roles in the administration, such Peter Mandelson, a former cabinet minister in Mr Blair's government who is now the UK's Ambassador in Washington. Mr Starmer is said to have told his cabinet to reject some of the core principles of Blairism, such as unquestioning globalisation and free-flow immigration. In the rank and file of the parliamentary party there are concerns, not only about the power of Mr Powell but also about Liz Lloyd, the Director of Policy Delivery, who was once Mr Powell's deputy. Speculation is rife that Tim Allan, the founder of PR firm Portland, is being wooed to accept a new role as permanent secretary of a department of communications to sharpen the government's message and take on disinformation. Turkey's peace Mr Powell became involved in the Turkey-Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) conflict in 2013, when the Turkish government initiated a peace process. A delegation of Turkish and Kurdish MPs travelled to the UK and Ireland that year to learn about the Good Friday Agreement. One Kurdish MP, Ayla Akat, recalled Mr Powell comparing negotiations to a bicycle: 'you've got to keep pedalling or you fall over'. The thorny issue was amplified by the US arming the armed wings of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) in north-east Syria in the fight against ISIS in 2017, which also saw Mr Powell offer his expertise. Turkey continued to view the group as an extension of the PKK, and felt deeply betrayed by the new US alliance. Working with the UK-based think tank the Democratic Progress Institute, Mr Powell and his team developed a programme which drew on the lessons from Northern Ireland. They briefed Turkish MPs from the ruling Justice and Development party (AKP). 'The American thinking was one day there will be a withdrawal from Syria. When that day comes they didn't want the Syrian Kurds to enter a conflict with Turkey. They wanted to prepare ground work for that,' the source said. Under the Biden administration, the US reached out to Turkey to propose a deal with the PYD, a source said. The overall situation has moved quickly to become a fully fledged peace process. Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the PKK, made his first appearance on camera this month in more than two decades. He told the group to lay down its weapons and move towards non-violent politics as its 'national liberation war strategy' had 'come to an end'. The UK also become involved in these talks, and Mr Powell's Inter/Mediate has a long history of involvement, under contract with the UK, with the PYD and Turkey. Syria rebuild Mr Powell first met Ahmad Al Shara – who formerly went by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed Al Jawlani – in 2015. Western governments at the time were seeking ways to maintain a footing within Syria, having severed ties with the Assad regime. After Al Shara moved on to Damascus, two consultants from Inter/Mediate followed to the Presidential Palace, supplementing a role the charity had in what appears to have been a legacy contract. Inter/Mediate's executive director Claire Hajaj and long-term projects director Lucy Stuart have been advising the president's office in Damascus as it looks to restore government to Syria, multiple sources said. Though widely praised, the under-the-radar nature of that work is also contributing to conspiracy theories about how a western-backed push for regime change eventually achieved its goals. When Donald Trump visits the UK he will do so in a private capacity. That means Mr Starmer's visit to the US President at his golf course, expected early next week, must take place without officials. Mr Powell's status as a special adviser to the Prime Minister has been controversial within the Whitehall system. But as his visit to China last week demonstrated, as well as one-on-one meetings with India's Foreign Minister and others, he can take on a public role. It should mean that under the rules he can be at the Prime Minister's side as the UK leader drops in unofficially on Mr Trump.
Daily Mail
4 days ago
- Politics
- Daily Mail
GLEN OWEN: Blair's 'Dodgy Dossier' diplomat and a quiet coup in Downing Street
Jonathan Powell was slinking through the shadows of diplomatic life when he was talent-spotted by and given unprecedented power as his chief of staff. While the majority of Mr Blair's inner circle fell away over the ensuing 12 years – the victims of scandal, fatigue or in-fighting – Mr Powell stayed firmly by the Prime Minister's side until they both left Downing Street in 2007. His presidential-style job title carried with it the new, and arguably unconstitutional, right to issue orders to civil servants, and brought him into frequent contact with Peter Mandelson, now the UK Ambassador to Washington. The two men are the real forces in British diplomacy, with Foreign Secretary David Lammy reduced to an effectively ceremonial role. Both Mr Powell and Lord Mandelson have formidable private networks they are able to mobilise. In Mr Powell's case, as we report today, he founded an organisation, Inter Mediate, which is paid by Mr Lammy's department to carry out off-the-books diplomacy with rogue states. Oxford-educated Mr Powell, 68, is the son of Air Vice-Marshal John Frederick Powell. He was described as an ultra-Left 'Maoist' at his private school. In stark contrast, his brother Charles, now 84, was foreign policy adviser to Margaret Thatcher when she was Prime Minister – and is the only one of four siblings to pronounce the family name to rhyme with 'pole' rather than 'towel'. Jonathan Powell's early career in the Foreign Office took him to Lisbon, Stockholm and the spies' nest of Vienna towards the end of the Cold War. He was posted to the British Embassy in Washington in 1991 and caught Mr Blair's eye after introducing him to Bill Clinton. Mr Powell's time as part of the 'sofa Government' with spin chief Alastair Campbell ranged from the highs of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 to the lows of the Iraq War and the publication of the 'dodgy dossier' justifying military action on the grounds that Saddam Hussein possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction. Mr Powell's time with spin chief Alastair Campbell (left) ranged from the highs of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 to the lows of the Iraq War and the publication of the 'dodgy dossier' justifying military action on the grounds that Saddam Hussein possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction Mr Powell's central role in the fiasco was revealed with the later release of an email he sent to John Scarlett, the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee in September 2002, which appeared to suggest that the language used in an early version of the dossier should be toughened up. Writing five days before the dossier appeared, Mr Powell asked: 'What will be the headline in the Evening Standard on the day of publication? What do we want it to be?' After leaving No 10, Mr Powell spent a year as a banker at Morgan Stanley before returning to diplomacy as the UK special envoy to Libya in 2014. Then, last year, he was appointed as Sir Keir's special envoy to resolve the Chagos archipelago sovereignty dispute. His solution was to recommend we hand it over, lock stock and barrel, to Mauritius. Since taking up his job as Sir Keir's National Security Adviser – controversially as a political position, rather than as a civil servant, as was previously the case – Mr Powell has used his experience to tutor the Prime Minister in how to handle Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, and to explain the complexities of the Middle East. He has also shuttled between London and Kyiv to try to broker a ceasefire in the Russian-Ukraine war. But some within Downing Street are growing increasingly wary about the influence of these smooth Blairites. In addition to Lord Mandelson and Mr Powell, there is Liz Lloyd, Mr Powell's deputy in No 10 during the Blair era, who is Sir Keir's director of policy delivery. At what point, they wonder, does 'experience' and 'guidance' become 'control'?
Daily Mail
4 days ago
- Politics
- Daily Mail
How Jonathan Powell's people brokered Syria deal from inside president's palace
When British special forces mounted a dramatic 'kill' operation against a senior terrorist in Syria last month, intelligence sources boasted how the hit meant the country was now a safer place. But while military might was neutralising the threats to Westerners in the troubled state, in the shadows of diplomatic back-channels, go-betweens were secretly working on ways the UK could re-establish formal links with Damascus and its new regime, led by Islamists once linked to Al Qaeda. Those moves are understood to have been significantly influenced by Sir Keir Starmer 's National Security Adviser, Jonathan Powell, using a mix of his powerful position in government and, as The Mail on Sunday reveals today, the organisation he founded. Inter Mediate is so embedded in the fledgling presidency of Ahmed Al-Sharaa that they are even said to operate an office inside the presidential palace. Diplomatic sources say their work, combined with security operations such as the killing of Abu Hasan al-Jazrawi – the mastermind behind suicide truck attacks on Western troops who was hit by a Hellfire missile unleashed from a Reaper drone – made Syria safe enough for David Lammy to become the first British minister to set foot on Syrian soil in 14 years. While in Damascus earlier this month, the Foreign Secretary announced the reinstatement of diplomatic links and spoke of 'renewed hope for the Syrian people' after a decade of conflict. After the visit, Mr Lammy said: 'As the first UK minister to visit Syria since the fall of Assad's brutal regime, I've seen first-hand the remarkable progress Syrians have made in rebuilding their lives and their country. The UK is re-establishing diplomatic relations because it is in our interests to support the new government to deliver their commitment to build a stable, more secure and prosperous future for all Syrians.' But yesterday, as Syria was plunged into further sectarian conflict, Mr Lammy was forced to strike a different tone. After a ceasefire failed to put an end to clashes between Bedouin tribes and Druze-linked militias, Mr Lammy said he was 'horrified by the violence in Southern Syria'. Writing on social media, the Foreign Secretary said: 'A sustainable ceasefire is vital. I spoke to Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani yesterday as part of UK efforts to urge a peaceful resolution. 'We want to see the fighting ended, civilians protected and humanitarian access enabled.' The new regime is scrambling to keep control of the country following the renewed clashes between militias from the minority Druze religious group and the Sunni Muslim Bedouin which have claimed hundreds of lives and left tens of thousands of people displaced. Fresh violence erupted last Sunday. Government forces intervened, nominally to restore order – but then sided with the Bedouins. Israel then launched air strikes against Syrian forces in defence of the Druze, which form a substantial community in Israel. Yesterday Mr Al-Sharaa urged Bedouin tribes to 'fully commit' to ending hostilities. Government forces had withdrawn from the Sweida province of Southern Syria following a ceasefire announced on Wednesday, but they are now preparing to return as it appears to crumble.
Daily Mail
4 days ago
- Politics
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Tories demand inquiry into Keir Starmer's National Security chief Jonathan Powell over secret taxpayer-funded talks with 'rogue states'
One of Sir Keir Starmer 's most powerful advisers was last night accused of running secret diplomatic back channels to 'terrorists' using his own taxpayer-funded team of 'outsourced spies and spooks'. Jonathan Powell, the Prime Minister's National Security Adviser, founded the shadowy organisation after he left Tony Blair 's Downing Street, where he was chief of staff when the infamous 'dodgy dossier' helped to propel Britain into war with Iraq. The outfit, Inter Mediate, receives funding from the Foreign Office for making contact with 'non-state armed groups', and is understood to have brokered the UK's deal with Syria which led to the re-establishment of diplomatic relations earlier this month. Mr Powell, 68, who stood down as the charity's £200,000-a-year chief executive when he returned to No 10 in November, also brokered the hugely controversial deal to surrender UK sovereignty over the strategically important Chagos Islands to Mauritius earlier this year. The move comes amid claims that the Blairites, led by Mr Powell and Liz Lloyd – his deputy in Tony Blair's administration and now Sir Keir's director of policy delivery – are trying to mount a 'power grab' within Starmer's administration. Diplomatic sources say that Inter Mediate played a central role in re-establishing relations with the Syrian government, which is led by former Islamists with links to Al Qaeda. After the deal was brokered earlier this month, Foreign Secretary David Lammy flew to meet President Ahmed al-Sharaa in Damascus, where Inter Mediate is said to operate an office inside the presidential palace. The interim government has become embroiled in deadly clashes with Druze militias in the southern part of the country, prompting Israel to mount retaliatory raids on Damascus. Last night, a senior Tory called for a Parliamentary investigation into why Mr Powell has been given 'special adviser' status, rather than being a direct ministerial appointment. That means he does not have to answer to Parliament, despite his role in dealing directly with foreign governments and negotiating the handover of the Chagos. Alex Burghart, Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, said: 'Not being able to question the national security adviser on his role in the Chagos surrender is outrageous enough. 'But it now turns out that he is using his private outfit to run back channels to terrorist groups. Parliament must surely be able to question him about this. If the Government has nothing to hide, it wouldn't be trying so hard to keep Mr Powell away from the cold light of scrutiny. 'Labour must come clean and explain themselves at once.' Inter Mediate displays Mr Powell prominently on its website, highlighting his role as 'a key architect of the 1999 Good Friday Agreement' in Northern Ireland. It says that he founded the organisation in order 'to share lessons from the Northern Ireland peace talks and help other leaders navigating similar dilemmas'. The website also says Mr Powell used his experience to 'play a central role in further successful peace accords', including the end of the Basque conflict in Spain, serving as a 'peace adviser' to President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia and working alongside Mozambique's President Filipe Nyusi to end the country's civil war. Less welcome headlines came over Mr Powell's role in the infamous 2002 dossier into Iraq's non-existent weapons of mass destruction, when it was revealed that he asked a security chief to make changes to a draft version because it posed 'a bit of a problem' for Tony Blair's Downing Street. The most recent accounts for Inter Mediate, which was founded by Mr Powell in 2011, highlight a 'greater commitment from the FCDO [Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office] through a new partnership agreement with the office of conflict, stabilisation and mediation'. Government spending records show that Inter Mediate is bankrolled by the UK Government to provide back channels to 'non-state armed groups' due to its 'high-level access to political elites'. The accounts, published in January, put its total income for the year to March 2024 at £2.96 million with the highest paid staff member – presumed to be Mr Powell – earning between £190,000 and £200,000. A Whitehall source said: 'These are essentially outsourced spies and spooks undertaking 'back channel' discussions with political leaders and armed groups to reach negotiated settlements.' In a letter to Simon Hoare, chairman of the public administration and constitutional affairs committee, Mr Burghart says Mr Powell should respond to the call to give evidence to Parliament's joint committee on the national security strategy (JCNSS), given that 'every previous national security adviser has appeared before the committee since the position was established in 2010'. Mr Burghart writes: 'I believe that this raises important constitutional matters that would be worthy of wider scrutiny by Parliament. 'The first duty of Government is defence of the realm: yet the Government does not wish the Prime Minister's principal adviser on national security to be scrutinised.' A Government spokesman said: 'The Government is committed to having a productive relationship with the JCNSS, and providing the best support and evidence to help it in its important work. In line with longstanding practice, senior civil servants and ministers with national security responsibility will provide evidence to the JCNSS.' A Government source added that Mr Powell's deputies would appear before the committee. They added: 'There is an established system in place for the declaration and management of financial interests. As has been the case under successive administrations, interests deemed relevant for publication for special advisers in No 10 and the Cabinet Office are published on an annual basis. 'Inter Mediate is a charity which works to resolve armed conflicts around the world. 'Jonathan severed all links with it when he rejoined Government last year.'
North Wales Chronicle
6 days ago
- Business
- North Wales Chronicle
Sir Keir Starmer's chief of staff highest paid special adviser
Morgan McSweeney is paid between £155,000 and £159,999, according to data released by the Cabinet Office on Thursday. A raft of other senior Number 10 advisers, also known as spads, occupy the next highest pay rung on salaries between £145,000 and £149,999, as well as the Chancellor's top economic adviser. National Security Adviser Jonathan Powell is also within the same pay bracket. Veteran diplomat Mr Powell was appointed as a special adviser in a political capacity last year, a break from the norm which saw previous post-holders taken on as civil servants. Overall the pay bill for spads in the 2024/25 was £16.7 million, but this included £3.1 million in severance costs, which would have covered outgoing advisers from the previous Conservative government. The salary bill was £9.5 million, lower than the £10 million spent in the previous year, while national insurance contributions have increased from £1.3 million to £1.6 million over the same period. According to the Government's release, as of March 31 there were 130 special advisers across the Government. Salaries over £76,000 are declared in bands of £5,000. Mr McSweeney was the only person in the £155,000 to £159,999 band.
