Starmer ‘cover-up’ as he blocks Mandelson requirements probe regardless of 15 Labour MPs rebelling and dozens extra abstaining… whereas ‘scared’ PM does not even present his face

Keir Starmer was accused of a ‘cover-up’ today as he forced uncomfortable Labour MPs to block a Mandelson standards probe. 

The Commons rejected a motion instructing the cross-party privileges committee to investigate whether the PM misled the House.

The referral was squashed by a margin of 335 to 223 – a majority of 112 – despite a string of Sir Keir’s own backbenchers urging him to agree for the sake of transparency. 

The official division list shows 15 Labour MPs ended up voting against the Government, while 53 did not vote – although it is possible not all of those abstained in protest. 

Kemi Badenoch pointed out that even though he has a massive theoretical majority Sir Keir opted to whip the vote, effectively threatening to sack anyone who did not back him. 

The premier did not show his face in the chamber – although he managed to cast a vote – with close ally Darren Jones saying he was busy chairing a Cabinet committee meeting on the Middle East crisis.

Mrs Badenoch said: ‘What’s he so scared of? He knows that he has misled Parliament so what he is doing is trying to cover up.’ 

Lib Dem leader Ed Davey said the PM was ‘cowardly’. 

In a bruising Commons debate, MPs branded Sir Keir ‘out of touch’ and warned that blocking scrutiny would ‘drag every single one of us down’. 

As the showdown loomed, Sir Keir was rocked by more evidence from key players in the appointment of Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US.

The former head of the Foreign Office told MPs that No10 had exerted pressure to push through the peer’s security clearance. Philip Barton also suggested normal process had not been followed because the appointment was announced before Mandelson had been through vetting.

Sir Keir previously told Parliament that ‘full due process’ was followed over Mandelson’s appointment, and flatly denied any pressure was put on the Foreign Office. 

In another dramatic session at the foreign affairs committee, Sir Keir’s ex-chief of staff Morgan McSweeney tried to save his erstwhile boss by taking responsibility for the disastrous choice of envoy.

Mr McSweeney said Sir Keir ‘relied on my advice and I got it wrong’. But he also admitted that No10 had been aware of the ‘pros and cons’ of appointing Mandelson, who had long-standing ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

The Labour strategist said he regretted having posed questions to Mandelson himself when the ambassador pick was being made, instead of leaving it to the Cabinet Office propriety and ethics team. 

Mr McSweeney initially suggested the appointment was made even though he had not believed Mandelson’s replies at the time – although he later tried to clarify that his doubts had emerged months later.      

Downing Street used every lever at its disposal to stop Labour MPs rebelling in a the vote this evening. 

Labour whips had warned that those who fail to back Sir Keir could be kicked out of the party, with ministers frantically ringing round to woo waverers.

Kicking off the debate in the Commons earlier, Mrs Badenoch said: ‘The Ministerial Code is very clear: ministers who mislead the House must correct the record, and I quote ”at the earliest opportunity”.

‘It is very obvious that… what the Prime Minister said at the despatch box was not correct. It’s clear that full due process was not followed. If Labour MPs allow the whips to force them to block the consequences of these decisions, it will degrade not just them, but this House.

‘The question is, what kind of people are they? Are they people who will live up to the promises they made about standards and the rules mattering, or are they people who abandon their promises to be complicit in a cover-up?’

Describing the debate as a ‘stunt’ is ‘disrespecting this House and disrespecting the Speaker’, Mrs Badenoch said.

She added: ‘It’s very obvious they’ve all been told to come here today. Tell everybody it’s a stunt, tell everybody it’s a stunt.

‘Why are they acting like sheep? Why are they acting like sheep? They should be better than that.’

Labour backbencher Emma Lewell said: ‘I have watched this whole sorry saga play out for weeks now, like the public, I feel let down, disappointed and I am angry.

‘Peter Mandelson should never have been appointed, this was a fundamental failure of judgment… I feel the way that today’s vote has been handled by the Government smacks, once again, of being out of touch and disconnected from the public mood.

‘The fact that MPs like me are being whipped into voting against this motion is, in my view, wrong. It has played into the terrible narrative that there is something to hide and good, decent colleagues will be accused of being complicit in a cover up.’

Ms Lewell said she ‘will not be voting against this motion’, adding: ‘I can’t understand why the Prime Minister doesn’t refer himself to the committee with a clear statement that he is doing so to clear his name. One quick session of the committee could surely see this matter concluded.

‘Instead, it will now drag on and dominate every headline and interview. It will overshadow and undermine every good policy we make, and continue to drag every single one of us down.’

Fellow Labour MP Nadia Whittome said: ‘I’ve listened to the Prime Minister’s arguments, and unfortunately, I am yet to be convinced that he has definitively not misled the House, even if inadvertently, because I’m concerned that pressure was put on the Foreign Office regarding managers and appointments given Sir Olly Robbins’ evidence.’

Karl Turner – who is currently suspended from the Labour whip for rebelling on jury trial curbs – said: ‘There is no way, in my honest opinion, that the Prime Minister would come to this House and deliberately mislead the House.’

But he said Sir Keir’s claim that ‘no pressure existed whatsoever’ was contradicted by other evidence.

‘I do think there is a prima facie case for this matter to be investigated and an inquiry to be had by the appropriate committee of this House,’ he told MPs.

Labour MP Brian Leishman said: ‘The Prime Minister said we would put country before party. Today, with this vote, he has the perfect opportunity to do just that.

‘The Prime Minister needs to stop putting Labour MPs in awkward situations. The open and honest thing would be to refer himself to the committee but if he won’t then I’m afraid he has left me with no choice. I will have to vote for this motion this afternoon.’

But a No10 spokesman said after the vote: ‘The Conservative Party resorted to this desperate political stunt the week before the May elections because they have no answers on the cost of living or the NHS.

‘We will continue to engage with the two parliamentary processes that are running on Peter Mandelson’s appointment with full transparency.’

Appearing before the foreign affairs committee earlier, Mr McSweeney stressed he had not tried to sidestep the vetting process for the US ambassador job. 

The dramatic comments came hours before Sir Keir faces a make-or-break showdown in the Commons over whether he misled MPs. 

Mr McSweeney said he believed Mandelson was the best choice because Britain was ‘exposed’ on trade after Brexit and with Donald Trump in the White House. 

He acknowledged that the New Labour architect had been a ‘confidante’ – but denied he was a ‘mentor’. 

Mr McSweeney said: ‘This was not some hero I was trying to get a job for. I thought that his skills as EU commissioner would help us to get the trade deal that I think the country needed, because we were very, very exposed after Brexit and getting that trade deal right was very important.’

Asked if he was the first person to put forward Mandelson’s name, Mr McSweeney said: ‘I think the first person who put Mandelson’s name forward was Mandelson.’

He added: ‘What I did do was make a recommendation based on my judgment that (Mandelson’s) experience, relationships and political skills could serve the national interest in Washington at an important moment. That judgment was a mistake.

‘What I did not do was oversee national security vetting, ask officials to ignore procedures, request that steps should be skipped, or communicate, explicitly or implicitly, the checks should be cleared at all costs. 

‘I would never have considered that acceptable. These processes are in place to protect our national security.’

Earlier, Sir Philip told MPs that the Cabinet Office initially argued the peer was a ‘fit and proper person’ and did not need to go through ‘developed vetting’.

Sir Philip also revealed that he was not consulted about Mandelson’s appointment as US ambassador in advance, and was merely told the PM had ‘accepted the risks and decided to proceed’.

He said there was ‘pressure’ from the centre of Government to push the process through so that Mandelson could be in Washington within a month.

Sir Philip said that was an ‘ambitious timetable’ and there would have been a ‘crisis’ if the peer had been rejected after being publicly announced, signed off by the King and accepted by the US administration.

‘The normal order is vetting then announcement,’ he said. ‘The timing of the announcement was driven and decided by No10.’

Mr McSweeney said: ‘The appointment of Mandelson as ambassador was a serious error of judgment. I advised the Prime Minister in support of that appointment, and I was wrong to do so.

‘As I said in my resignation statement, I resigned because I believe responsibility should rest with those who make serious mistakes. Accountability in public life cannot apply only when it is convenient. The Prime Minister relied on my advice, and I got it wrong.’

Challenged on his reliance on advice from Mandelson, Mr McSweeney said: ‘He was a confidant for me. I didn’t regard him as my mentor.

‘I first had a conversation with Peter Mandelson in 2017. I don’t think I really started to go to him for advice until about 2021, and I was 44 years of age then, so I didn’t regard him at all as a mentor.

‘I got advice from him, and it was useful, but I also had other people around who were perhaps a bit more shy with the media, who I saw to for advice. I was working with… we brought in some extremely experienced people from the Blair administration.

‘So Liz Lloyd came into our team, Jonathan Powell came into our team, and I would certainly ask both of those for advice about how things work as well. So I asked a range of people for advice and help. I don’t regard Mandelson as ever being a mentor, but certainly as an adviser.’

Mr McSweeney said the PM had been presented with a choice of either Mandelson or Tory former Chancellor George Osborne as the US envoy.

‘I said to the PM you have two appointable candidates,’ the ex-aide said. 

Mr McSweeney said he learned details of Mandelson’s relationship with Epstein through the release of files related to the paedophile financier over the course of 2025.

He described the revelations as ‘like a knife through my soul’.

‘The nature of the relationship that I understood he had with Epstein was not a close friendship. How I understood it at the time was a passing acquaintance that he regretted having and that he apologised for,’ he said.

‘What has emerged since then was way, way, way worse than I had expected at the time, and it was when I saw the pictures, when I saw the Bloomberg questions in September 2025, I have to say it was like a knife through my soul.’

Mr McSweeney insisted that if Mandelson had failed vetting he would not have been appointed. 

‘If it had happened, we’d have withdrawn the ambassadorship. It would have been a political embarrassment,’ he said. 

Mr McSweeney suggested Downing Street would have gone on to ask Karen Pierce to stay on for longer as ambassador.

The Labour strategist admitted it would have been ‘much better’ if he the Cabinet Office propriety and ethics team had posed questions to Mandelson about his links to Epstein.

Instead he chose to make inquiries in writing – with No10 now saying Mandelson did not give a full picture. 

‘I think that when I look back on it, I certainly think it would have been much, much better if I’d asked Pet (propriety and ethics team) to ask those follow-up questions,’ Mr McSweeney said.

‘I guess my thinking at the time was I’d put follow-up questions to him in writing, and that if a senior member of staff did that, that he would feel more obligated to give the truth and the full truth.

‘I didn’t feel that I got that back from him. But it wasn’t my decision. It was the Prime Minister’s decision, and he saw the DV (developed vetting) as part of that decision.’ 

Pressed later on whether he meant that he did not believe Mandelson at the time, but the PM had gone ahead anyway, Mr McSweeney said: ‘Sorry, let me correct myself.

‘In September, I realised I didn’t get the truth back from him. At the time, I thought I got the truth back from him.

‘When I saw the emails and the pictures that came out and that were published from the Epstein files in September last year, that’s when it really dawned on me that I did not get the full truth from him.

‘At the time, I thought he was telling the truth. If I didn’t think he was telling the truth, I would have said, “this guy is not telling the truth”, but I did think he was telling the truth.’

Mr McSweeney was also asked about the theft of his Government mobile phone last year. 

The incident was initially not pursued by police after he gave the location as Belgrave Street – which was interpreted as being an address in Stepney – rather than Belgrave Road in Pimlico.

Mr McSweeney explained: ‘I also said I was in Westminster. So I said I was in Belgrave Street, Westminster, where I think I was on… Lower Belgrave Street. So it was some months ago, and I missed the ‘Lower’. I didn’t see it.’

He added: ‘I was also quite adrenalised. So what happened was I chased the guy who stole my phone as far as I could. I was out of breath, I was completely exhausted, because at 48 years of age you shouldn’t be chasing people down the street, and then I was trying to go back to the original location that it happened, so that I could tell the 999 operator.

‘As I was following the guy, he turned away from a park that I could see in front of me. And as I was coming back to try and find the original location. I just assumed that the call handler was looking at it on the map.

‘I haven’t heard the audio. I can’t imagine that I was clear and coherent at the time. I was out of breath, I was adrenalised, and if I gave any wrong direction, it wasn’t intentional.’

Mr McSweeney also insisted that the location he gave did not result in a police vehicle being sent to the wrong address, as the call handler said a ‘squad car wasn’t coming as we were on the call’.

Former Foreign Office chief Olly Robbins revealed in his evidence to MPs last week that conversations took place about giving an ambassadorial job to Sir Keir’s outgoing spin doctor Lord Doyle.

Asked about the discussions, Mr McSweeney said: ‘It was clear that Matthew Doyle’s time in Government was coming to an end, and the Prime Minister wanted me as part of that, to discuss with Matthew Doyle next steps, because these are difficult conversations. And the Prime Minister wanted me to convey to him that if he had wanted to stay in Government, that he should consider doing so because he had extensive experience in Government.

‘The private office asked what vacancies that Matthew Doyle might apply for. There was no suggestion at any point that he would be imposed in. If he had wanted to work in the Foreign Office, Matthew Doyle would have had to apply for any of those posts the same as anybody else.’

Mr McSweeney said then-foreign secretary David Lammy was not told about the discussions as Lord Doyle’s exit from Government at the time was a ‘delicate HR issue’.

Earlier, Sir Philip said he was ‘presented with a decision… and told to get on with it’.  

The evidence appears to contradict suggestions from the Cabinet Office that it had insisted on DV for the peer. 

Sir Keir has been going all-out to save his skin as he faces a Commons test later that could decide his fate.

Defeat for the PM would trigger a formal inquiry by the privileges committee, throwing his floundering government deeper into a tailspin.

Sir Philip told the committee: ‘As we were taking forward the practical steps required, the Cabinet Office initially said that as Mandelson was to use the technical phrase from the guidance a ”fit and proper person”, as a member of the House and Lords, he did not require developed vetting.

‘I mean, to be honest with you, I thought that was odd and insufficient. I had been deputy ambassador in Washington, and therefore occasionally charge-d’affaires. I knew very well to do the job effectively, you have to be party to some of the deepest secrets that the UK Government holds.

‘But I also recognise that the situation was unusual, and I therefore asked for advice, although it was pretty clear in my mind from the FCDO security team. They came back to me after discussions with the Cabinet Office, and said that their advice was that he should have DV, and I absolutely agreed with that.’

Sir Philip said by that time the Cabinet Office had also ‘reflected’ and agreed that DV was needed. 

Sir Philip said he only learned the Government wanted to appoint Mandelson to the post on December 15, 2024.

Sir Keir had been ‘made aware of the risks, and had accepted those risks and decided to proceed’, Sir Philip added.

Sir Philip denied an extraordinary claim aired before the committee last week, that Mr McSweeney told him to ‘just f***ing approve’ the appointment in a phone call.

But he made clear there was ‘pressure’ from No10 – something Sir Keir has flatly denied. 

‘There’s two possible questions here. Question one is, was there pressure on the substance of the DV case?’ he said.

‘Question two is, was there pressure to get the DV case done in a particular timeframe?’

He continued: ‘Answer one is, during my tenure, I was not aware of any pressure on the substance of the Mandelson DV case.

‘Question two, was there pressure? Absolutely.’

He added: ‘I don’t think anyone could have been in any doubt in the department working on this that there was pressure to get everything done as quickly as possible.’

Challenged whether No10 had been dismissive of the DV process, Sir Philip said: ‘I wouldn’t use the word dismissive. The word I would use is uninterested. I think people wanted to know that all the practical steps required for Mandelson to arrive in Washington on or around the inauguration date. It needed to be completed at pace, as it were.’ 

Sir Philip said there was no contingency plan for what would happen if Mandelson’s DV had been refused, although he stressed it could have caused a crisis.

‘It would have been a crisis if we got to the point where he had no vetting clearance, that would have been a crisis,’ he said.

He added that ‘a publicly-announced political appointment as the next ambassador to Washington not being able to go, that would have been a big problem’.

The mandarin said he personally had concerns about the peer’s appointment due to his long-standing friendship with paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein. 

‘There was no space for dialogue,’ Sir Philip told the MPs. ‘I had a concern that a man who demonstrably from the public record at the time – and it was clearly much bigger than we all knew – had a link to Epstein, and that Epstein through both the presidential election campaign in the US and more generally in US politics, had been and was a controversial figure, and I was worried that this could become a problem in future…

‘That is a very candid account of probably what I was thinking at the time, but there was no space or avenue or mechanism for me to put that on the table.

‘A decision had been taken. It was a political decision.’

There has been a major arm-twisting operation in full effect at Westminster, with a three-line whip in place for Labour MPs to support the Government.

That is in stark contrast to when Sir Keir called a similar vote against Boris Johnson over Partygate. At that point he argued that MPs should be free to follow their own consciences. 

The PM told a packed meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party last night: ‘When we stick together and fight together we are so much stronger.’

He sought to dismiss the Commons vote as a ‘stunt’ ahead of the May elections.

‘I have responsibility for being totally transparent with you, with Parliament and the British public,’ he said.

‘I take that very seriously as well. But this is not about a lack of transparency.

‘This is a political stunt by our opponents who want to bring us down, obscure our message, stop us getting on with our work.

‘And the timing tells you everything, nine days before local elections.’

He said the Conservatives had put forward ‘totally baseless’ and ‘absolutely ridiculous’ accusations against him and insisted the motion on Tuesday was ‘pure politics’, adding: ‘We need to stand together against it.’

The privileges committee was responsible for Mr Johnson’s exit from frontline politics after it investigated him for misleading the House over the ‘Partygate’ breaches of Covid laws in Downing Street.

He quit as an MP in 2023 before the committee published a report recommending his suspension.

The Government also took the unusual step last night of publishing a letter from former cabinet secretary Sir Chris Wormald to the PM, in which he said he had concluded the ‘appropriate processes were followed’ in both the appointment and sacking of the peer.

Sir Keir has also faced questions for insisting to MPs that ‘no pressure existed whatsoever in relation to this case’ after former top Foreign Office official Sir Olly Robbins said there had been ‘constant chasing’ from No 10 while checks were taking place for the ambassadorship.

Sir Olly’s claims were echoed in written evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee published last night from another key figure in the security process.

According to a letter from the Foreign Office drafted in consultation with Ian Collard, who was head of security in the department, the official said he ‘felt pressure to deliver a rapid outcome’ to the clearance procedure.

This was in light of ‘regular contact from No 10 to the FCDO (permanent under-secretary’s) office,’ the letter said, although Mr Collard did not personally speak to Downing Street colleagues and ‘does not assess that this pressure influenced professional judgment that was reached by himself or his team’.

The PM has been accused of misleading MPs by saying ‘full due process’ was followed in appointing Mandelson, who was given developed vetting status despite failing security checks.

The Foreign Office, under then top civil servant Sir Olly, cleared him despite red flags raised by experts at the UK Security Vetting (UKSV) agency.

Mr Collard, who briefed Sir Olly on the vetting findings, also did not see the UKSV file recommending clearance be denied, according to the letter published on Monday.

Instead, he received an oral briefing from officials which led him to believe Mandelson’s case was ‘borderline’ and that ‘the risks could be mitigated,’ the evidence said.