Inside the Starmer foreign policy team trying to survive in Trump’s world

By Dan Bloom and Esther Webber - "Politico"

LONDON - Keir Starmer is trying to manage Donald Trump yet again. He has a long queue of people to tell him how.

As the British prime minister tries to navigate one of the rockiest periods ever for the U.K.-U.S. special relationship, he is relying on a wide cast of characters from experts to his friends — and adjusting, reluctantly, to a world of hard power.

POLITICO spoke to 23 current and former U.K. government aides and politicians, all of whom were granted anonymity to discuss internal matters, to map out the network advising Starmer on foreign policy at a time of rolling crisis. Each of them represents a different pressure on the prime minister — who is still without a permanent chief of staff.

As one government official put it: “It’s not who has the PM’s ear — it’s who has the PM’s ear on what.”

The Powell supremacy

No one embodies Starmer’s desire to be a fixer on the world stage more clearly than national security adviser Jonathan Powell, who remains a dominant force nearly 18 months after taking the job. The private feeling among some civil servants that he is “the real foreign secretary” persists, even after Starmer appointed Yvette Cooper as his second (actual) foreign secretary in September.

One U.K. government official said Powell is seen as one of the sharpest operators in Starmer’s government and is used as a troubleshooter by European allies.

One European diplomat said Powell, the veteran former chief of staff to Tony Blair, “gives the direction” for No. 10 foreign policy. A person in the U.K. security community added: “When I want to know something I just pick up the phone to Jonathan Powell.”

Several people who have worked with Powell — who helped shape the 1998 peace process in Northern Ireland — point to his skills as a peacemaker above all. One former government official contrasted the approaches of Powell and former No. 10 chief of staff Morgan McSweeney: “Morgan would say it doesn’t matter if we piss these people off. Jonathan would always be more considered.” 

Powell was one of the handful of aides who joined Starmer on his reassurance tour of Gulf nations last week, said a person with knowledge of the trip. He negotiates on the PM’s behalf; in March he met China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi, while in February he was spotted meeting Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff in Geneva ahead of Russia-Ukraine talks.

In internal meetings, the same former official said, “Jonathan would say things like ‘Witkoff won’t like that.’ His approach is that there’s no reason to upset anyone unnecessarily — which is why Keir likes him, because he is similar.” A long-serving Whitehall official described Powell as being less about “concrete deliverables” and more about “keeping all sides happy.”

The extraordinary scope of Powell’s role is rare for an unelected political adviser. “People have been concerned about the sustainability of the arrangement since the beginning,” said one person who works with No. 10 on foreign policy. “He is essentially fulfilling the NSA role, plus the chief foreign policy adviser role and the foreign secretary role.”

His behind-the-scenes influence — No. 10 blocked MPs from questioning him in public — has also raised eyebrows in some parts of Whitehall, where officials can sometimes struggle to get full information out of Downing Street. The first some senior figures knew of Powell’s recent China trip was when Beijing released the photos.

As the world darkens and the Starmer-Trump relationship frays, some wonder if the PM will need to reach beyond Powell’s “peace lens,” as one official put it. Powell’s allies dismiss this as a caricature, saying he is no pacifist and peace talks involve the hardest trade-offs. But no one would doubt that the world has changed since the 1990s — including Powell himself, who said similar publicly before entering government.

Olivia O’Sullivan, director of the UK in the World Programme at Chatham House, a foreign affairs think tank, said: “In this government you see a tendency to reach back to the time last time Labour was in power, sometimes explicitly, for some of the same people, for guidance and advice, and for, in some cases, roles. But of our foreign policy guardrails and assumptions, most of the really important ones have shifted since that era.”

The No. 10 team

Then there is the side of Starmer watching warily how global affairs hit back home

The PM opted not to hire a separate foreign policy chief to Powell in the style of John Bew, who held the role for several years under the Conservatives alongside a separate NSA. Instead, a year ago he appointed Henna Shah, who had worked on political campaigning and party relations, to work on foreign policy reporting to Powell.

Shah advises Powell and Starmer on the political implications of foreign policy back in Britain — an issue that has taken on a new urgency. The PM has made his refusal to join the Iran war, and help in the ensuing cost of living surge, a campaigning point in May elections. He has gone from buttering up Trump to mentioning the U.S. president and Russia’s Vladimir Putin in the same breath.

When Starmer approved limited U.S. use of British bases during the Iran conflict, Shah and Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the PM, spent the weekend ringing round to ensure the Cabinet was squared behind the policy, said two people with knowledge of the calls. A third person said her role also involves consulting with Starmer’s restless MPs, including in a row over approval for a new Chinese embassy in London, and stakeholders such as leaders in the Jewish community. “She is a doer — she knows how to get things done,” the third person said.

Then there’s Starmer’s need to manage policy through the British machine — as well as his desire to seek an economic relationship with China.

Powell’s two civil service deputies — Matthew Collins, who has advised No. 10 on national security issues since 2022, and Barbara Woodward, who handles international affairs — are both heavily involved in giving advice to the PM, in part because Powell’s sprawling brief spreads him thinly. 

Collins was singled out for praise by Starmer after he was thrust into the headlines by a collapsed court case against two British men accused of spying for China. (Collins had given the government’s witness statements.)

Woodward’s appointment in December caused little fanfare, but she is making an impression. As Britain’s former envoy to China and the United Nations, Woodward was in contention to lead the intelligence agency MI6. One Whitehall official said her way of working is “very clinical” and “excellent,” arguing she is underutilized. They said she would be just as strong an NSA as Powell.

One of Woodward’s first tasks in No. 10 was helping finalize Starmer’s visit to China — which only got the final green light from Beijing after London had approved its new embassy. Despite some Conservatives suggesting she was not hard enough on China, “I’ve never thought of her that way,” the same official said. “She’s quite hawkish.”

Another senior figure in No. 10 is Ailsa Terry, the PM’s private secretary for foreign affairs and a former high commissioner to Malaysia. One person who has worked with the civil servant described her work ethic as Stakhanovite and said she knows how to make Whitehall move.

Whispering to MAGA

All the while, Starmer wants his administration to keep whispering to MAGA — despite the stream of invective from the White House. As the president becomes more erratic, Downing Street officials have relied on other bilateral relationships.

One of those conduits is Varun Chandra, the smooth-talking Downing Street business adviser. The political appointee narrowly missed out on the job of U.K. ambassador to Washington — which went to a civil service lifer, Christian Turner — and instead bagged the Trump-style title of special envoy to the United States on trade and investment.

Chandra has met Trump’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and negotiates on Starmer’s behalf on trade deals and pharmaceuticals. That, in turn, has set him up as a general line to the Trump administration in the way that former Ambassador Peter Mandelson was designed to be, before he resigned over his friendship with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

“Don’t underestimate Varun,” said one official. “He’s a very influential figure and Keir really likes him,” said another. A third added: “Christian [Turner] is doing a good job out there, but with Varun breathing down his neck all the time.”

Ex-Foreign Secretary David Lammy also keeps up a line to MAGA-land through the relationship he cultivated in opposition with Vice President JD Vance. Lammy met Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington, D.C. on Monday. A government official said his friendship with Vance — which has included joint trips to take mass — is an “effective channel.” As deputy prime minister, liaising with vice presidents has become part of Lammy’s official job description.

Relations between Lammy and No. 10 have not always been smooth. It was widely reported that he voiced doubts about the decision to appoint Mandelson. The Foreign Office and No. 10 also clashed in late 2024 over demands from Caribbean nations for slavery reparations during a Commonwealth summit. Three people recalled Lammy objecting to No. 10’s insistence that reparations were not on the table, when other nations would clearly bring them up anyway.

Others in the foreign policy world have suggested Lammy’s pitch in the run-up to the 2024 election was lacking in detail. One government official said: “David Lammy’s foreign policy was entirely pegged on the phrase ‘progressive realism’ — I’m not sure what else it offered.” (Allies of Lammy reject this, pointing out that Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney has since laid out a similar doctrine of “principled pragmatism.”)

Lammy was replaced as foreign secretary in September with Yvette Cooper, a party veteran who spent years on the front bench under Starmer in charge of home affairs. The two politicians are not personally close, but this year Cooper has had occasional cups of tea with Starmer and they talk on the phone privately at least once a week. “Sometimes they just want to clarify their thoughts,” said a person with knowledge of the conversations. She also meets Powell regularly, two officials added.

Cooper also keeps up her own direct line to the Trump administration, chatting to Rubio on Signal. As Britain’s top diplomat, Cooper’s words make clear the stark differences with the U.S. over the approach to Iran. She has called for a “containment plan” that would halt Tehran’s nuclear ambitions without wiping out the regime. Trump attempted the latter.

On the other hand, the deep state-to-state ties between the U.K. and U.S. have not broken — even though the Iran conflict has put them under strain. Talks on many trade and security issues continue quietly. Trump is said to be less hostile to Britain in private phone calls with Starmer than he is on Truth Social.

When so much foreign policy is channeled through the prime minister and his team, there are inevitable questions in Whitehall about where that leaves the role of foreign secretary. “Of course, she’ll be influential, she’ll be in the room,” said one person who speaks regularly to No. 10. “But is she the person that he spontaneously rings when he’s got a random thought at 10:30 p.m.? No, that will be Jonathan Powell.”

Cooper has freer rein on foreign policy issues that Starmer has not deemed a personal priority. She has pushed for a ceasefire in war-ravaged Sudan. Britain’s help for poorer nations has also been diminished, though, by cuts to foreign aid, which Starmer announced in order to fund a boost in defense spending.

Concerns about defense and security are growing in No. 10. Starmer told February’s Munich Security Conference that hard power is now “the currency of the age” — a phrase that has since been deliberately echoed by his Defence Secretary John Healey. 

But pressure is mounting on Starmer from military chiefs and political opponents to spell out a more detailed timetable for his defense spending boost. A 10-year defense investment plan was originally due before Christmas but has still not arrived.

Healey is a key embodiment of this tilt toward defense. “I know it’s [the] highest priority for [Starmer] as it is for me,” he told an audience of security officials last week. A “quad” of senior figures — Starmer, Powell, Healey and Cooper — have hung back after some wider meetings amid the Iran crisis, said two people with knowledge of the talks. One said Chancellor Rachel Reeves, with whom defense officials are grappling for cash, has been present for similar get-togethers. 

Starmer the lawyer

Then there is Starmer the human rights lawyer — and in this he has no greater proxy than Attorney General Richard Hermer, a close friend from his days as a young barrister.

One person close to No. 10 said: “Hermer is very, very important, not just because he understands international law, but because he understands the essence of Keir Starmer better than anyone else in the Cabinet. He is the closest thing Keir’s got to a friend in the Cabinet.”

Two government officials said Hermer regularly visits Starmer for private conversations — about politics, strategy, family or just old times. “He and Keir just chat,” said one. “They share ideas.”

Hermer was a rare direct appointment to the Cabinet from outside politics in 2024. He tried to keep a low profile at first, but has decided to be more outspoken after relentless attacks from the right. In March he gave a speech rejecting the notion that the world’s rules “are written by the strong.” He added: “Like Keir, I believe human rights and international law are forces for good and need to be defended.”

All this means Hermer is credited — or blamed — for a long line of government policies, from the decision to hand sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius (now in limbo due to Trump’s objections) to the decision to grant only limited access to Britain’s air bases for U.S. jets flying to Iran.

“He is unbelievably influential,” said the person who works with No. 10 on foreign policy, quoted earlier in this article. “He was one of the key driving forces in the dithering over the initial response to the U.S. request for the bases.”

Hermer is unable to challenge many claims about his involvement because of the law officers’ convention, which stops ministers revealing whether they have sought legal advice in all but exceptional circumstances.

But the mere fact that Starmer relies on his strict legal advice when it comes means that when war rages in the Middle East, Hermer’s work will be significant.

One former No. 10 aide under Starmer argued there was a divergence within Downing Street on the role of international law; “not whether you believe in it or not, but your purism” about following it to the letter. The same person put McSweeney and Mandelson — who have both now left Starmer’s operation — on the opposite side of that debate from Hermer, and Powell somewhere in the middle.

I love EU

Hermer is part of another category of person advising the PM — his friends.

Stuart Ingham, one of Starmer’s longest-serving aides, also advises him on foreign policy, said three people with knowledge of the conversations. Described by one official as “cerebral” and by another as “the last remaining constant” from Starmer’s days in opposition, Ingham took up an offer to remain in No. 10 despite a staff overhaul in September.

Now “senior counsel” to the PM, Ingham has become “Keir’s ears here and there,” said one person who knows him. This includes on foreign policy — particularly Europe. (Ingham and Starmer toiled away on obscure policy when Starmer was shadow Brexit secretary in the 2010s.) Ingham accompanied the PM on his February trip to the Munich Security Conference.

Starmer’s tilt to Europe is becoming clearer all the time, guided and encouraged by another personal friend of the PM; Nick Thomas-Symonds, the minister for EU relations, who is negotiating his “reset” with the EU. The pair catch up every couple of months to discuss politics, sometimes over breakfast. 

Starmer was already ramping up his messaging about aligning with the EU before the Iran war struck. The government was also elevating the “E3” alliance with France and Germany to a greater significance. Some of Labour’s own aides have been on a journey too; two who recently left, Paul Ovenden and Ben Judah, have both advocated a “Gaullism” in which Britain loosens its reliance on the U.S. 

Other Cabinet ministers, less close to Starmer personally than Hermer or Thomas-Symonds, have their say too.

Starmer’s Chief Secretary Darren Jones has been one internal voice enthusiastic about closer relations with the EU, said one person with knowledge of the conversations.

And three people with knowledge of his visits said Douglas Alexander, the Scotland secretary who has long harbored ambitions to work on foreign policy, has recently been going for beers with the prime minister. As one official put it: “The thing that gets Douglas out of bed is foreign policy.”

Too many cooks?

A range of voices can be a good thing. Sophia Gaston, a senior research fellow at the Centre for Statecraft and National Security at King’s College London, said: “Britain needs a deep bench that includes people who can think about wider global dynamics, and with strong skill sets in negotiation and diplomacy, as well as people who are willing to fight tooth and nail in the national interest in a much stronger frame of competition.”

But it also means that thinking ends up fragmented across government, said the long-serving Whitehall official quoted above. “Foreign policy is not the most coherent under Starmer,” they argued. “No one is bringing our priorities together in a distinct way or managing people going up against each other.”

Some Labour government aides insist there has been a shift.

One said there is now “more of an explicit focus on the British national interest and a bit more pride about that.” Another said this has come through in the No. 10-supplied briefings for Cabinet ministers when they appear on TV. “Our lines are much clearer about what we would say is intolerable,” they said. “There is greater licence to make clear where we disagree [with Trump].”

But for all the hardening of Starmer’s language, several other aides point out that Starmer’s overall foreign policy — to present himself as a critical friend of the U.S. and a partner to practically everyone, even China — has not changed. 

Starmer has neither made a sweeping shake-up to his foreign policy team nor his 8:45 a.m. meeting in Downing Street. Wrangling continues over an overdue defense spending plan. While politicians in Brussels want to overhaul the EU’s entire decision-making architecture, the British state’s vibe is to keep calm and carry on.

The person who speaks regularly to No. 10, quoted earlier in this article, said of Starmer: “It’s not him breaking free or unleashing. 

“It’s all very him. He’s played the game. He’s built the relationship … but at the end of the day, Trump’s actions are not good for Britain, and so he is calling it out.”

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(Report by Dan Bloom and Esther Webber - www.politico.eu)