{"id":427484,"date":"2026-02-15T19:32:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T19:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/427484\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T19:32:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T19:32:09","slug":"jonathan-powell-rejects-overtures-to-replace-mcsweeney-as-starmers-chief-of-staff-jonathan-powell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/427484\/","title":{"rendered":"Jonathan Powell rejects overtures to replace McSweeney as Starmer\u2019s chief of staff | Jonathan Powell"},"content":{"rendered":"

Keir Starmer\u2019s national security adviser, Jonathan Powell, has rejected overtures to become the prime minister\u2019s chief of staff after the resignation of Morgan McSweeney<\/a>, the Guardian has been told.<\/p>\n

Powell\u2019s allies say his decision not to take forward discussions about the job \u2013 the same role he undertook under Tony Blair\u2019s premiership from 1997 to 2007 \u2013 was largely motivated by an intention to return to the mediation consultancy that he set up in 2011, with little interest in returning to a job he has already done.<\/p>\n

He is said to be weighing up a departure from Downing Street at the end of the year, which would represent another significant departure from the prime minister\u2019s senior team.<\/p>\n

Downing Street sources firmly denied that Powell had any plans to step down, saying he was not leaving Downing Street and would continue as national security adviser. They said any suggestion Powell had been offered the role of chief of staff was untrue.<\/p>\n

Morgan McSweeney resigned last week over continued controversy around Peter Mandelson\u2019s latest role in government. Photograph: Jonathan Brady\/PA<\/p>\n

Powell is credited with playing a key role in shaping Starmer\u2019s policies on the world stage. The prime minister\u2019s efforts to build a relationship with Donald Trump and act as a self-styled bridge between the US and Europe are seen as one of the more successful elements of his tenure at No 10.<\/p>\n

In a continued Downing Street clear-out after the controversy over the decision to make Peter Mandelson the ambassador to Washington, it was announced on Thursday<\/a> that Chris Wormald, the cabinet secretary, was stepping down \u201cby mutual consent\u201d after just over a year in the job.<\/p>\n

It is understood that Powell very strongly advised Starmer not to appoint Mandelson as ambassador, an opinion that could emerge in internal government memos due to be published after a Commons vote<\/a> earlier this month.<\/p>\n

Downing Street sources said they would not comment on advice given to the prime minister.<\/p>\n

The mass of documentation, which ministers agreed to release after the controversy over Mandelson\u2019s long-term links<\/a> to the child sex offender and disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, will be released after sensitive items are filtered by parliament\u2019s intelligence and security committee.<\/p>\n

Powell\u2019s recommendation did owe to any special knowledge of Mandelson\u2019s relationship with Epstein but was because he felt from his personal experience during the Blair government that Mandelson courted controversy and would represent trouble for the prime minister.<\/p>\n

As Blair\u2019s chief of staff, Powell had to handle two cabinet resignations by Mandelson and on both occasions felt Mandelson did not handle the controversy as well as he could have done. His opposition to Mandelson underlines the extent to which Starmer and McSweeney ignored top-level foreign policy advice from inside No 10 and the Foreign Office over the appointment.<\/p>\n

David Lammy, who was foreign secretary at the time of the appointment, has also let it be known that he opposed the plan, but he may have been reflecting a Foreign Office view that such a high-level diplomatic appointment should go to a professional diplomat and not a former Labour<\/a> minister.<\/p>\n

Powell has been regarded as a highly effective national security adviser, acting as a key liaison between No 10 and the European \u201ccoalition of the willing\u201d built to support Ukraine. He has also been at the centre of the controversy over the decision to hand the Chagos Islands to Mauritius<\/a>.<\/p>\n

His consultancy, Inter-Mediate, specialises in working behind the scenes to bring together parties in a conflict. Powell always regarded the highly demanding national security job as a fixed-term appointment.<\/p>\n

At Inter-Mediate, Powell \u2013 considered to have been one of the key architects of the 1999 Good Friday agreement \u2013 played a role in supporting negotiations to end the Basque conflict and demobilise the Eta separatist group. In addition, he served as a peace adviser to the former Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos on his Nobel prize-winning settlement with the Farc rebels.<\/p>\n

Powell also worked alongside Mozambique\u2019s former president Filipe Nyusi to end the country\u2019s long civil war through a landmark agreement signed in summer 2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Keir Starmer\u2019s national security adviser, Jonathan Powell, has rejected overtures to become the prime minister\u2019s chief of staff…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":202629,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-427484","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-greatbritain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427484\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}