Peter Mandelson, the scandal-struck Epstein-linked Labour grandee was refused a security clearance but became British Ambassador to the U.S. anyway, leading to urgent calls for the Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer should resign if he misled Parliament over the appointment.
British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has been accused of having “blatantly lied” to Parliament and the public over his appointment of senior Labour colleague Peter Mandelson to the British embassy in Washington. The most serious political scandal in the lifetime of the present British government, the other major parties have demanded the Prime Minister resign.
Questions remain over what exactly the Prime Minister knew — the present official line is that he was ignorant of his own political appointee being rejected by the security services, but that finding being overruled — and for what exactly Mandelson was turned down for. This rolling, months-long scandal has already brought down the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, the censorious anti-Breitbart News activist Morgan McSweeney who fell on his sword in an apparent bid to draw fire away from his boss.
Left-leaning, but not necessarily Starmer-friendly British newspaper The Guardian revealed on Thursday that, “according to multiple sources”, that when the Prime Minister announced his decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as ambassador to Washington in 2025 the vetting process hadn’t yet been completed. That process concluded on January 28th of that year with a rejection, but that was then overruled by the Foreign Office and Mandelson was appointed anyway.
The situation as revealed gives the impression of the British government’s own security processes having been overruled — which is technically permissible but extremely rare — for the sake of avoiding the political embarrassment of de-selecting the ambassador after he had been named.
When the United States published fresh tranches of Jeffrey Epstein emails earlier this year, Mandelson’s name featured heavily. While Mandelson’s association with Epstein was long known, and before Starmer decided to make him ambassador, the emails appeared to show the relationship between the two men was deeper and longer-lasting than previously publicly known, and appeared to display that lies had been told.
Mandelson is now being investigated by police for alleged charges of misconduct in public office over emails that appeared to show him emailing confidential British government documents to Epstein while Mandelson was a government minister under Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
When Starmer was called upon to defend his decision to appoint earlier this year when the Epstein emails were released, he said several times that Mandelson had been vetted by the security services and that he’d gotten clearance. These remarks were interpreted at the time as a clear bid by the Prime Minister, and others who spoke for him, to shuffle the blame onto the security vetting process. For instance, Starmer had said in February that there was “security vetting carried out independently by the security services, which is an intensive exercise that gave him clearance for the role, and you have to go through that before you take up the post.”
When Starmer came to power after the last UK General Election, it was on a platform promising probity, thoroughness, and a ‘buck stops here’ model of accountability. Indeed, as leader of the opposition, Starmer had previously made absolutely clear that he believes that a Prime Minister who misled the House of Commons should resign, which is precisely what he is now accused of doing.
Brexit pioneer and leader of the country’s top-polling political party Nigel Farage was among the first of those calling on Starmer to now resign over the scandal. He said: “Keir Starmer said in February that the security services had given Mandelson “clearance for the role”. Now we discover that he has blatantly lied, the Prime Minister should resign.”
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said “we now know” that Starmer misled Parliament and that accordingly he should now take “responsibility”. The hard-left Green Party also called for him to step down, and said in their statement:
Keir Starmer has lied and lied again over his decision to appoint Peter Mandelson and he must resign. Starmer told parliament ‘due process’ had been followed. This report makes clear that was untrue.
He has tried to blame the vetting process, when in fact it is reported that a decision was taken to ignore a failed vetting. We need answers on what and when Starmer and David Lammy knew about this decision to overrule the vetting report.
The Greens also called for the reason Mandelson failed vetting to be revealed. While it is evident his relationship with Epstein was a national security risk, it’s by no means clear if that was the only skeleton in the closet unveiled by the security services during that process.
Much depends on whether the Prime Minister and those close to him can convince the country that, despite being in charge of the country and having intervened to make Mandelson ambassador against normal practice, that the whole process of vetting, its reporting, and then it being overruled was done secretly without their ever being told.
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