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KEIR STARMER has told the House of Commons why he did not know that Peter Mandelson had failed his security vetting. MPs listened in an atmosphere which veered between stony indifference and incandescent outrage.
At the outrage end, two MPs were sent out of the Chamber for calling the Prime Minister a liar. Reform MP Lee Anderson alleged that Starmer “couldn’t lie straight in a bed” and Your Party MP Zarah Sultana referred to him as a “bare faced liar”. It wasn’t a clever move from either of them. It is well known that referring to another MP as a liar when speaking in the Chamber results in being sent out. Once you are sent out, there you are on the naughty step going “look at me, I’m so radical” and very little else. It’s a narcissistic rather than a smart move.
Starmer’s case was that he expected to be told that Mandelson had failed the vetting – ideally immediately, or at least when civil servants saw him going to the House of Commons to defend appointing him. Opposition MPs, and even some of his own backbenchers have planted some mild body blows, but no one has landed a knock-out punch.
Tory Leader Kemi Badenoch
The Tories are pushing the line that he should have been more curious and asked for confirmation – which is a criticism that you can only make after the event, after you know that you were not told something that, now you know the outcome, you wish you had been told. Tory Leader Kemi Badenoch raised various technicalities, such as whether Starmer’s delay of a few days in coming to the House of Commons amounted to a breach of the Ministerial Code. There’s an introspective criticism indeed.
Lib-Dem Leader Ed Davey accused Starmer of blaming civil servants rather than taking the blame himself for their actions that he did not know about. This was a rather typical Lib-Dem protest – one of the few it was possible to make if you weren’t going to call the Prime Minister a liar or wave technicalities around.
The Green Party wandered off-script and said that the Prime Minister should resign because it was unforgiveable that he appointed Mandelson – which has been the topic of other debates, but not the one held today. A similar line was taken by the Scottish National Party.
One of the most interesting points to come out in the parliamentary debate – rather than the usual humphs and name-callings – was the timing of Mandelson’s security vetting. Starmer claimed today that it was usual for security vetting to happen after someone had been appointed and before they took up post. The BBC has found a “government document” written in November 2024, just before Starmer appointed Mandelson, in which Simon Case, the then Cabinet Secretary, told Starmer something different. Case warned Starmer that if he was considering making political appointments, he should give Case their names straight away, so that preliminary vetting could be carried out.
One of the most interesting points not addressed in the parliamentary debate was why Starmer wanted to appoint Mandelson as UK Ambassador to the USA anyway. The only public explanation given – that Mandelson was part of the in-crowd around US President Donald Trump and could build relationships with him like no one else could – sounds a little hollow.
Mandelson: in with Trump
That in-crowd was essentially the in-crowd that included Epstein, so that suggests that the Boys Club that is trying to run the world should be flattered into submission rather than challenged. Starmer is unlikely to have come up with the idea of appointing Mandelson all by himself. There were shady forces involved in getting Starmer to become Labour Leader and getting Morgan McSweeney installed as his chief advisor. Somehow the choice of Mandelson just makes one think of International Go-getter and darling of US PresidentsTony Blair.
However, the Epstein papers released to date show that Mandelson was emailing government documents to Epstein. Mandelson has said that he was acting in the national interest, without the hope of financial gain = and this makes it all right.
People are talking about Mandelson’s appointment as if the only problem was his relationship with Epstein – but he also had dealings with various Russian and Chinese industrialists. Did these relationships come to light in the vetting? Were they the reason why the vetting resulted in a negative verdict?
It would be one thing for the Civil Service to over-rule the vetting verdict on the basis of Mandelson’s continuing relationship with a convicted sex offender. It would be a decision in a different league if they over-ruled a vetting decision which had been on the grounds of Mandelson’s relations with industrial and political heavyweights from other powerful countries.
Olly Robbins, top civil servant in the Foreign Office, has fallen on his sword, after Starmer held it out for him and tripped him up. He is due to be questioned by the Foreign Affairs Select Committee tomorrow, Tuesday 21st – after which there will be another round of media discussion about this matter.
Starmer hasn’t resigned today, but Labour’s results across the UK following elections on 7th May, which were looking bad before this scandal broke, may yet force him out – and force Labour into the unknown.
●Read more about it:
McSweeney falls on sword in desperate move to save Starmer
Tulip: another headache for Keir Starmer
