Sir Keir Starmer will face one of the most significant tests of his premiership in the Commons today, as he attempts to explain his role in the appointment of Lord Mandelson as US ambassador despite the Labour grandee having failed security checks.
The Prime Minister is expected to make a statement addressing what he knew about the vetting process, following a week in which the affair has escalated rapidly into a full-blown political crisis. The Foreign Office’s most senior official, Sir Olly Robbins, was dismissed last week after it emerged that Lord Mandelson had been granted developed vetting status despite not meeting the required security threshold — and that the Foreign Office had overruled the original vetting decision without disclosing this publicly.
Most damaging for the Prime Minister, however, are reports that Sir Keir was personally informed of the specific concerns that caused Mandelson to fail his security checks, and chose to proceed with the appointment regardless. The suggestion that he was warned and “waved away” those concerns has fuelled accusations that he subsequently misled Parliament when he told MPs the proper process had been followed.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch described the situation as a “shaming affair,” while former minister Robert Jenrick was more direct in his assessment. “Keir Starmer is either grossly incompetent or a liar,” he said, adding that the Government was “paralysed by a paedophile scandal.”
The pressure on Starmer is being felt within his own circle. A senior Government figure told The Guardian that the coming days could prove decisive for his future as Prime Minister. “All roads lead back to the original sin: Keir’s decision to appoint Peter Mandelson to Washington even though everybody knew it was high risk,” the source said. “This week could go either way.”
Today’s Commons statement will centre on a fundamental question that Starmer’s critics argue he has yet to answer convincingly — how Lord Mandelson was permitted to take up one of the most prominent diplomatic posts available to a British government while the Foreign Office concealed the fact that its own vetting process had been overridden.
