Keir Starmer ally hits out at ‘unacceptable’ Mandelson blunder with PM on brink
The Labour leader is under immense pressure to step down as a key ally tried to shift blame for Peter Mandelson’s appointment on to the Foreign Office. Keir Starmer will address Parliament on Monday
Is this the end of Starmer? (Image: POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
Keir Starmer’s premiership is teetering on the brink of collapse as a key ally blasted the Foreign Office’s handling of Peter Mandelson saga as “beyond unacceptable”. The Prime Minister is now facing widespread criticism from across the political spectrum and is expected to address Parliament on Monday.
The PM’s Chief Secretary Darren Jones said Starmer was “furious” that the Foreign office overruled a security vetting process to allow Mandelson to become UK ambassador to the US. Mr Jones added that the rules have been changed to prevent it happening again.
The Foreign Office’s top civil servant Sir Olly Robbins was effectively sacked after the revelation that officials took the rare step of overruling the recommendation from UK Security Vetting.
Mr Jones told LBC Radio: “Given the nature of the problem here, not just in terms of the appointment, but the position that it has put the Prime Minister and Cabinet ministers in as a consequence of the decision to overrule the recommendation of UK Security Vetting, and the fact that the system even allowed for that to happen in the first place, it’s of a scale of a problem that we’ve not experienced in government before. It is beyond unacceptable.”
Mr Jones said he had suspended the ability of the Foreign Office and a “small number” of other organisations to overrule recommendations by UK Security Vetting. The Government claimed the Prime Minister was not aware that the former Labour grandee was granted developed vetting against the advice of UK Security Vetting until earlier this week.
Mr Jones accepted the situation was embarrassing and “the Prime Minister is furious”. Sir Keir will face MPs on Monday amid calls for him to resign for misleading Parliament over his insistence that the proper process was followed during Lord Mandelson’s appointment.
Mr Jones said: “The very fact that the Foreign Office and a small number of other organisations have the right to overrule a recommendation from UK Security Vetting not to appoint someone to a sensitive post because of security concerns is quite frankly, astonishing.
“So I took the immediate decision last night to suspend the right for all of those organisations, including the Foreign Office to do so and I’ve commissioned an urgent review to understand how often this behaviour has taken place across government.”
Asked if Sir Olly had resigned or been fired, Mr Jones said: “He has lost the confidence of the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary, which is effectively a dismissal.”
Mr Jones said the vetting papers could be released to Parliament under the terms of the motion passed by MPs demanding access to the files relating to Lord Mandelson’s appointment.
He said “we’re not far off” releasing the second batch of files and when the information emerged that UK Security Vetting had recommended against his appointment “legal advice was taken about being able to include that in the humble address, and we intend to do so once it’s gone through the Met Police and the Intelligence and Security Committee”.
Mr Jones said the documents produced by UK Security Vetting were tightly controlled.
“They go through financial, personal, sexual, religious and other types of background information and that is why it is kept extremely private on a portal that only a few people have access to.
“The Prime Minister was not given those documents because he would not routinely be giving them about individuals’ appointments.”
