Keir Starmer speaks to The Mirror as he prepares for a high-stakes showdown with MPs on Monday – after it emerged Lord Peter Mandelson failed security vetting
Keir Starmer will address the Commons on Monday(Image: POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
Keir Starmer has come out fighting amid the deepening row over Peter Mandelson’s vetting to be US ambassador as he prepares for a showdown with MPs.
The Prime Minister lashed out at officials who neglected to tell him the shamed grandee had failed to get security clearance for the plum job in Washington, over his relationship with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. It emerged last week that the vetting advice was overruled by the Foreign Office – reigniting fury over the New Labour veteran’s appointment.
The furious PM sacked top mandarin Sir Olly Robbins on Thursday amid growing recriminations as he faced calls to quit if he misled Parliament from opposition parties. Speaking to the Mirror this weekend, Mr Starmer said he would make it “crystal clear” to MPs that he was in the dark – and said it was “unforgivable” that the Foreign Office failed to tell him after he had offered assurances that proper process had been followed.
Asked if he misled MPs and the public, the livid PM said: “The fact that I wasn’t told that Peter Mandelson had failed his security vetting when he was appointed is astonishing. The fact that I wasn’t told when I said to Parliament that due process had been followed is unforgivable, and that’s why I intend to set out in Parliament on Monday the facts behind that, so there’s full transparency in relation to it.
“But am I furious that I wasn’t told? Yes, I am. Am I furious that other ministers weren’t told? Yes, I am. I should have been told, and I wasn’t told.”
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Mr Starmer apologised directly to Jeffrey Epstein’s victims in February for believing Mandelson’s “lies” when he appointed him as US ambassador. Speaking at the time, the PM claimed he did not know the “depths and darkness” of the relationship between Lord Mandelson and the billionaire predator Epstein.
Asked if he would apologise to MPs on Monday, he said: “I’m going to set out in terms what happened. But I shall be making it absolutely crystal clear, as I have done a number of times, and I don’t think anybody is disputing this, that I was not told that Peter Mandelson had failed his security vetting, and I should have been told.”
His comments came as Cabinet allies rallied to the Prime Minister’s defence ahead of his high-stakes appearance in the Commons on Monday over the scandal. Opposition leaders including Tory chief Kemi Badenoch have called on him to resign in the wake of the latest revelations over the Lord Mandelson appointment saga.
Liberal Democrats leader Sir Ed Davey said Mr Starmer has shown “catastrophic misjudgment” on “many levels”. He told Sky News: “The thing that I think Labour MPs should think about quite carefully now is their Government has been a bit of a failure, frankly, on the economy, on so much, and it’s in chaos, in the way that Conservatives were in chaos, in perpetual crisis, and I don’t think they can get out of that unless Keir Starmer moves aside.”
But speaking on Sunday, the Cabinet minister Liz Kendall told Sky News the PM should not lose his job over vetting error as the government sought to limit the fallout. Asked whether she still had confidence in Mr Starmer to lead the party into the next election, Ms Kendall replied: “100% because he is a man of guts, strength and courage”.
Citing the decision not to join the US-Israeli war with Iran, Ms Kendall went on: “The Prime Minister on the big calls facing this country has made the right calls.”
She denied the government had gambled with national security over Lord Mandelson’s appointment – but said it was a “serious mistake” for the Foreign Office not to tell Mr Starmer or the then-Foreign Secretary David Lammy, the New Labour veteran had failed vetting. Ms Kendall insisted the PM would have rescinded Lord Mandelson’s appointment, which had already been made public before the UK Security vetting process.
Deputy PM Mr Lammy also rallied to Mr Starmer’s defence, saying it was “inexplicable” Downing Street was kept in the dark that Lord Mandelson had failed vetting. The Justice Secretary told The Guardian: “I have absolutely no doubt at all, knowing the PM as I do, that had he known that Peter Mandelson had not passed the vetting, he would never, ever have appointed him ambassador.
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“The Prime Minister was not particularly close to Peter Mandelson. He hadn’t worked with him in the past, as some of us had. He was weighing a decision, but I’m quite sure had he known that, he would not have become ambassador. Therefore this is inexplicable.”
Sacked Foreign Office chief Sir Olly Robbins will be given the chance to present his side of the story when he appears at the Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday. It will be his first public comments on the vetting process since the story broke last week.
Over the weekend former offiicials offered their support to Sir Olly. One of his predecessors as Permanent Secretary at the Foreign Office, Lord Simon McDonald, claimed Sir Olly had been “thrown under the bus” in the sacking by the Prime Minister.
Asked whether Sir Olly deserved to lose his job, the former Deputy Cabinet Secretary Helen MacNamara also told the BBC on Sunday: “No.” She added: “One of the many frustrating things about this, there’s still no information. We’re still in a he said, she said world. This is such a self-inflicted mess effectively.”
