Keir Starmer hands ex-Blair aide who led Chagos Islands ‘surrender’ talks a top a top Government job:

 A former top aide to Tony Blair who led negotiations over ‘surrendering’ control of the Chagos Island has been made the Government’s National Security Adviser.

Sir Keir Starmer today confirmed that Jonathan Powell would take up the senior post inside No10 in place of Sir Tim Barrow.

Mr Powell spent 10 years in Downing Street as chief of staff to Sir Tony between 1997 and 2007 and played a central role in the Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland.

But in September this year he was named the government’s special Envoy for negotiations between the UK and Mauritius.

And he was one of the staunchest defenders of the subsequent deal struck to hand over the Chagos Islands – formally the British Indian Ocean Territory – to an island state 1,300 miles away which has close links with China.

After the deal – which includes a 99-year lease on the Diego Garcia airbase – was announced last month he said BIOT was a group of ‘very tiny islands in the middle of the Indian Ocean where no one actually goes’....<<<Read More>>>...