Morgan McSweeney told the Foreign Affairs Select Committee: “Jonathan Powell got appointed too before the necessary [vetting] work”. Westminster has moved on since the release of the damning Mandelson files, Guido has not…
Leaked emails show that Jonathan Powell was working in Syria from at least 2012 onwards – including negotiating with terror groups. As part of that work, Powell established back-channel contact with Hayat Tahrir Al Sham via Inter Mediate, the negotiation and diplomacy consultancy he co-founded after leaving government. Powell markets this as ‘talking to terrorists’, the title of his book on conflict resolution…
Did Powell meet the leader of HTS Ahmeda al-Shara/Jolani in 2021 – a time when he was a wanted terrorist with a $10 million bounty on his head from the US government? Powell’s Inter Mediate company certainly worked with HTS and al-Shara from 2023 onwards, rebranding them ‘from terrorists into politicians’. The work included organising two meetings between HTS and former US ambassador to Syria Robert Ford…
Today, after HTS’s violent seizure of power, Inter Mediate reportedly operate an office in the Presidential Palace of Ahmed Al-Shara. Powell’s links to Syria appear to involve Wafic Said, who has helped Powell establish contacts in the region. Labour is giving it large on a crackdown on groups such as Palestine Action – what about the record of its own security bigwig?
The Mail and other outlets have reported that Powell used his former company Inter-Mediate and his role in government to ‘significantly influence’ the UK’s relationship with Syria. Friends of Powell like Wafic Said have managed to secure massive $300 million deals with the Syrian government. Did Powell’s rushed vetting cover his work on these issues? What declarations did Powell make before the meetings he has held with Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa, who Inter Mediate continued to advise once Powell returned to Number 10? Labour is up to its neck…
Speaking at his speech on how to achieve “progressive capitalism” Wes Streeting fired a dig and Andy Burnham:
“Bond markets are not bond villains and fiscal rules matter.”