Sir Keir Starmer and Jonathan Powell are cut from the same cloth. According to officials in No 10, both the Prime Minister and his National Security Adviser are lawyerly, serious and earned their spurs in the late 1990s when a multilateral, human-rights consensus underpinned all foreign policy decisions.
“They both epitomise grown-up government, and when it comes to dealing with China, co-operating where we can and challenging where we need to,” a Cabinet colleague of Starmer told The i Paper. As evidence of how well the PM is served, the senior minister cited Powell’s long list of experience as Tony Blair’s chief of staff, alongside his role in negotiating the Good Friday peace agreement, and as founder of Inter-Mediate, a charity specialising in global conflict resolution.
Other ministers are less convinced Starmer is being well served by Powell. One told The i Paper that Beijing’s increasingly blatant espionage, intellectual property (IP) theft and alleged human rights abuses should have “tipped the balance” away from what they now call No 10’s “timid” economics-first approach.
Starmer’s reliance on Powell’s advice has not gone unnoticed among those who think the prime minister is insufficiently political, and others who suspect No 10’s lack of involvement led directly to the collapse of a court case of two men accused of spying for China.
The Director of Public Prosecutions said the case against two former Parliamentary researchers collapsed because evidence could not be obtained from the Government referring to China as a national security threat. Starmer and his office have repeatedly insisted the last Conservative administration had not designated China as such a threat, so could not provide evidence to that effect.
However, The Sunday Times reported Powell discussed the case in a meeting last month in which he had revealed the Government’s evidence would be based on the national security strategy, which was published in June and does not refer to China as an “enemy”.
“The question is who made the decision to undermine the justice system and when and why?” Conservative MP and China hawk Tom Tugendhat told The i Paper.
Inside Government, the collapse of the case has raised questions about whether Starmer swerved confronting China ahead of the start of trade talks with Beijing last month, after a seven-year hiatus. Some officials also wonder whether the PM’s dependence on Powell – “without him Keir has no foreign policy” as one waspishly puts it – mean the Prime Minister is paying insufficient attention to how Powell-negotiated international deals will land domestically.
During the argument in the spring over handing the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, Starmer’s lawyerly, serious “grown-ups” – including Powell and Attorney General Richard Hermer – insisted the Chagos deal secured the military base’s long-term future and strengthened the UK’s national security. Far less thought was given to the political question of how the Prime Minister could publicly defend giving a territory with a UK-US military base to an ally of China and, what’s more, pay £101m a year for the pleasure. A backlash both in Westminster and Washington immediately left him on the back foot.
“There have been concerns inside No 10 that the politics of it all get overlooked in the grand, multi-layered chess-playing,” a Downing Street insider told The i Paper.
“Jonathan comes at this with a huge amount of experience but from a particular place, a rarified orbit. Domestic politics are not always at the forefront of his mind. This started with Diego Garcia [the atoll where the military base is located] and there was no sense of what Reform would do domestically to attack us on it. China is the latest example.”
And so on Monday, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch insisted the Government make a statement on the case, a bruise she is likely to keep prodding. That’s despite earlier protestations from Starmer’s spokesperson. They said suggestions the Government encouraged prosecutors to drop the case are “entirely untrue”, and branded claims that the government concealed or withdrew evidence or witnesses “categorically untrue”.
They also responded to accusations Powell made decisions about evidence as “simply untrue.”
With the public finances grim, some suggest Starmer is putting economics ahead of security. One source said he was not only repeating mistakes made by former Tory PM David Cameron’s pursuit of a “golden era” of diplomatic ties with Beijing, but was even compounding them.
“The Treasury is desperately hoping that some short-term investment will help them balance the books,” a former Government official who worked in UK-China relations told The i Paper. “But in the long term, Chinese money is often more harmful than helpful.
“Take the case of Imagination Technologies. British technology and IP was hived off to Chinese companies – including a company that’s part-owned by the Russian government and was later sanctioned by the US. Imagination then laid off hundreds of staff in the UK as jobs were offshored. Not exactly the sort of growth the Treasury envisioned.”
“Successive governments have made the same mistake in thinking that China responds to the cocktails and canapés approach – in other words that if we’re nice to them, they’ll be nice to us. They’re not. If you give an inch, they take a mile. Their diplomatic model is built around constantly pushing to see where your red lines are and the more you permit, the more they probe,” the source said.
Badenoch is likely to highlight the issue at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday. Ministers will expect ongoing questions about planning approval for China’s 20,000 metre square mega-embassy near the Tower of London.
square ANNE MCELVOY China ramping up espionage. Britain has been warned
Read More
In August, approval was put on ice while China was asked to explain why parts of its plans for the new embassy were redacted. On Monday, Downing Street was still insisting a decision would be reached by 21 October, a deadline few in Government expect to be honoured.
The Tories have tried their hardest to attack Starmer’s lieutenants as a proxy for the Prime Minister himself. An ill-conceived attempt to depose No 10 Chief of Staff Morgan McSweeney petered out like a damp firework. Now, no one but the most optimistic Tory expects Starmer to get rid of Powell, who was in Egypt last week as the Middle East negotiations came to a successful conclusion.
On Monday US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff even made a special effort to praise Powell’s “incredible input and tireless efforts” in bringing about the ceasefire in Gaza.
There’s no doubt Powell moves in rarified circles among international leaders. At home, though, Starmer’s “grown-ups” may be at risk of not seeing the political wood for the trees. Even allies, who think the Prime Minister has broadly got the balance right in relations with Beijing, say he needs to be more upfront in spelling out the risks and rewards of a pragmatic trading relationship with the world’s second-biggest economy.
Hence then, the article about starmer s reliance on grown ups to set his foreign policy is now backfiring was published today ( ) and is available on inews ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Starmer’s reliance on ‘grown-ups’ to set his foreign policy is now backfiring )
Also on site :
- US Housing Market Falling Into ‘Deflationary Vortex,’ Analyst Warns
- WWE RAW Results & Winners (October 13, 2025): The Vision backstab Seth Rollins; CM Punk wins triple-threat match; Asuka flatlines Rhea Ripley & more
- Maldives becomes the first country to achieve ‘triple elimination’ of mother-to-child transmission of HIV, syphilis and hepatitis B