UK National Security Adviser Is a National Security Risk

Jonathan Powell is the National Security Adviser in the government of Andy Burnham. His wife Sarah Helm is a journalist, a writer, and most relevantly, a supporter of Palestine Action, a group that has been banned in the U.K. as a terrorist group. Therein lies a tale. More on Sarah Helm, and why her husband needs to be discharged from his current role, can be found here: “UK police assessing post by national security adviser’s wife supporting Palestine Action,” Reuters, October 16, 2026:

British police say they are assessing a social media post after the wife of National Security Adviser Jonathan Powell appeared to express support for Palestine Action, a pro-Palestinian group banned as a terrorist organization.

Journalist and author Sarah Helm, who is married to Powell, responds on X to a post about the Irish novelist Sally Rooney, who this week announced her books would no longer be sold in Britain over her plans to use her royalties to support Palestine Action.

Helm said in the post: “God help us authors who support Palestine and Palestine Action.”…

Asked for comment, a government spokeswoman says: “These views are held by an individual who does not represent the government in any capacity.”

Yes, that individual — the deplorable Sarah Helm — may not represent the government, but she is married to someone at the highest level in the national security apparatus of the state. Isn’t it obvious that as his wife, she surely has a great deal of influence on him? And she will naturally want to share her views with him, and will try to convert him to her dangerous point of view if, in fact, she has not done so already..

Will Sarah Helm be arrested, as 3,500 others in the U.K. have been, for expressing support for Palestine Action, as the law requires? Or does she get a pass because of who her husband is? And what about her husband? Can he be trusted with national security secrets if his wife is a supporter of a pro-Palestinian terrorist group? Would Mossad be willing to share its secrets, including about terrorist networks and plots in the U.K., and perhaps reveal sources and methods, with Jonathan Powell, now that it knows what his wife believes? Is it likely that he remains unaffected by, or even hostile to, his wife’s views? Should the British government not consider him a security risk and discharge him? Imagine during the Cold War, if the American National Security Adviser had been married to a deep admirer of the Soviet Union? No, you can’t imagine it. It’s unimaginable. So why has Jonathan Powell not already been handed his walking papers?