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In the topsy-turvy world in which Keir Starmer and his aides operate, the US putting the onus on Russia to agree to a truce with Ukraine marked a significant victory.
The proposed 30-day ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine is the culmination of two weeks of high-wire negotiations involving Ukraine, the US, UK, France and Germany.
Within hours of the plan becoming public on Tuesday, UK sources let it be known that among its architects was Jonathan Powell, a veteran of the New Labour years who has emerged as one of the most important figures in shaping British foreign policy under Starmer.
Powell was in Ukraine over the weekend thrashing out the terms of the proposal in writing with Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, before Ukraine and the US entered crunch negotiations in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday to get it over the line.
The Guardian has been told that Powell has been pivotal in steering the UK response to the fallout between Donald Trump and Zelenskyy in the Oval Office on 28 February. He successfully argued that Starmer should not issue an immediate reaction on social media and instead get on the phone to both leaders.
“Jonathan Powell has earned his money,” said Emily Thornberry, the Labour chair of the Commons foreign affairs committee, on Wednesday. “The idea that he’s been out in the United States and speaking to the Americans and the Germans and the French, and crafting the offer and then going to Ukraine and crafting the response: it’s an achievement,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
Thornberry said Powell brought a “depth of understanding and a calm” to the role. Aged 38 when he started working for Tony Blair in opposition, he served as chief of staff for the entirety of Blair’s premiership and helped to negotiate the Good Friday agreement. Before that, he was a diplomat who worked on negotiations to return Hong Kong to China and arms control talks with the Soviet Union in the mid-1980s.
At 67 he was brought back into government from Inter Mediate, the conflict resolution not-for-profit organisation he founded. Those who have worked with him in the past year say he is a calm and seasoned operator who does not seek the limelight. “He has an air about him of a person who has done this all before,” one colleague said.
The same person said Powell was “very much the PM’s choice” for national security adviser, having impressed while leading the government’s negotiations to return the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, a much-maligned deal that now looks set to be waved through by Trump.
Powell has also become No 10’s de facto chief adviser on foreign policy, filling a vacuum left by John Bew, who had the role under three Conservative prime ministers. This has prompted concerns in sections of Whitehall that Powell is spinning too many plates and cracks will begin to show.
“The two biggest concerns that I’m consistently hearing is that he’s got way too much on, and he’s having to travel the whole time as he’s effectively the chief envoy,” said a foreign policy expert who is plugged into Whitehall.
The Guardian reported in January that Morgan McSweeney, Starmer’s chief of staff, intended to appoint a foreign policy adviser to bolster the No 10 operation. Special advisers were told on Tuesday that the role would be filled by Henna Shah, an ally of McSweeney who has been serving as No 10 director of party relations and will play a supporting role to Powell.
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Peter Ricketts, who served as national security adviser under David Cameron, said: “Each PM designs No 10 and the staff around them to suit them. Tony Blair used Jonathan Powell in much the same sort of way as Keir Starmer is doing and it suits the Starmer style – no drama, quiet, effective work in the background.
“The issue for Jonathan to watch is that he’s keeping very much on side with David Lammy [the foreign secretary] – this quiet backchannel work needs to be done in close coordination with Lammy and John Healey [the defence secretary] so both ministers feel they have full confidence in him,” Ricketts said.
Powell’s centrality to the negotiations has raised questions about whether Lammy is being sidelined as the UK’s chief diplomat. One diplomatic source said: “Power in foreign policy affairs tends to swing between Downing Street and the Foreign Office. Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak all largely left it to the Foreign Office, but Starmer has brought it firmly back into No 10. David Lammy is currently a bit player, but he’s not the first foreign secretary to find himself in that position.”
Lammy’s allies say he has been closely involved in the ceasefire negotiations over the past week and spent a year laying the groundwork for engagement with the Trump administration, including by building a strong relationship with the vice-president, JD Vance. Unlike Joe Biden’s administration, where much of the power rested with the national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, under Trump there are several influential figures shaping foreign policy, including Lammy’s direct counterpart, Marco Rubio.
Powell also helped advise Lammy and Starmer on foreign policy issues in opposition, and the foreign secretary is said to have argued that Powell should be brought into government after Labour won the election.
“He has enough political intuitiveness to be able to adapt,” the foreign policy expert said of Powell. “He is given the authority to speak and act on behalf of the prime minister, which hasn’t always been the case with his predecessors.”
Kiran Stacey contributed to this report.
