Starmer faces calls to quit after revelation Lord Mandelson failed vetting for US ambassador role

Sir Keir Starmer is facing calls to resign after it was revealed Lord Mandelson failed security vetting but still became ambassador to the US.

The Prime Minister has been accused of misleading parliament after repeatedly insisting due process was followed in the appointment of the disgraced peer and that he had been vetted in the normal way.

But it emerged on Thursday that the peer was initially denied clearance in late January 2025 after a developed vetting process, a highly confidential background check by security officials.

But the decision was reportedly overruled by the Foreign Office as the Prime Minister had already announced he would be making Mandelson the UK’s chief diplomat in Washington, the Guardian reported.

The Government denied Starmer had knowledge of the decision, but opposition parties demanded he resign.

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said: “The PM appointed Peter Mandelson before the vetting had been completed, vetting Mandelson failed.

“Starmer then said full due process was followed.

THAT is misleading Parliament.

I'm only holding him to the same standards to which he's held previous PMs - that if they mislead parliament, they should resign.

“In these dangerous times, Britain cannot afford to have a PM who the country doesn't trust.

Starmer has betrayed our national security.

He should go.”
Reform leader Nigel Farage and Lib Dem leader Ed Davey also called for the PM's resignation.

Mr Farage said: “Now we discover that he has blatantly lied, the Prime Minister should resign.”
Mr Davey said: “Keir Starmer had already made a catastrophic error of judgement.

“Now it looks as though he has also misled Parliament and lied to the British public.

If that is the case, he must go.'
“Keir Starmer had already made a catastrophic error of judgement,' he said.

“Now it looks as though he has also misled Parliament and lied to the British public.

If that is the case, he must go.”
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Labour backbencher Graham Stringer said that if the Prime Minister was aware that Lord Mandelson had failed his vetting, he should resign.

“Whether you’re a junior minister or the most important minister, the Prime Minister, if you lie to Parliament knowingly, then you have to go,” the MP for Blackley and Middleton South told LBC.

Dame Emily Thornberry, senior Labour MP and chairwoman of the Foreign Affairs select committee, said: “My committee asked several times whether red flags had been raised by Peter Mandelson’s vetting process.

“It seems there were.

Who overrode these concerns?

“Why were we kept in the dark?

People need to stop messing us about and tell us the truth.”
Sir Keir has previously insisted due process was followed in the appointment, and that Lord Mandelson had lied about the extent of his links with paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Lord Mandelson, a political appointment rather than a career diplomat, was sacked from his Washington role last September when more details emerged about his relationship with convicted sex offender Epstein, who died in 2019.

“The decision to grant developed vetting to Peter Mandelson against the recommendation of UK Security Vetting was taken by officials in the FCDO.

“Neither the Prime Minister, nor any government minister, was aware that Peter Mandelson was granted developed vetting against the advice of UK Security Vetting until earlier this week.

“Once the Prime Minister was informed he immediately instructed officials to establish the facts about why the developed vetting was granted, in order to enact plans to update the House of Commons.”
The Guardian had also reported that senior Government officials were weighing whether to withhold documents from Parliament that would show Lord Mandelson failed the security vetting.

The spokesperson however said the Government is committed to complying with the parliamentary motion to disclose documents relating to Lord Mandelson’s appointment “in full as soon as possible”.

Documents to be provided to the parliamentary intelligence and security committee (ISC) as part of the disclosure will include documents provided to the FCDO by UK Security Vetting, the spokesperson said.

An FCDO spokesperson later said: “The Prime Minister has initiated a process to establish the facts of the granting of developed vetting and we are working urgently to comply with that process.”
Sir Keir has previously said that vetting carried out independently by the security services “gave him clearance for the role”.

But the peer was not granted approval following the secretive process by the Cabinet Office’s UK Security Vetting (UKSV) last January, The Guardian reported.

The committee intends to summon the Foreign Office’s top civil servant, Sir Olly Robbins, over evidence he previously gave on the vetting process.

Sir Keir has been under fire over the decision to give Lord Mandelson the job despite it being known that his dealings with Epstein continued after the financier’s conviction for child sex offences.

Questions over his judgment intensified after the first batch of documents related to the decision published last month showed that he was warned before announcing Lord Mandelson’s ambassadorship of a “general reputational risk” over his association with Epstein.

That warning stemmed from the first part of the checks, carried out by the Cabinet Office, which was based on information in the public domain at the time.

The second was the highly confidential background vetting by security officials, which followed the announcement but before Lord Mandelson took up his role in February 2025.

Foreign Office officials deployed a rarely used authority to override the decision to deny Lord Mandelson clearance, and he was told days later that he had passed, according to The Guardian.

More documents relating to his appointment are yet to be released at the behest of MPs.

Some material is expected not to be published either because it relates to a police investigation into Lord Mandelson, or because Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee believes it could jeopardise national security or diplomatic relations.

But keeping documents from the committee could amount to a breach of the Conservative motion to release “all papers relating to Lord Mandelson’s appointment”.

Lord Beamish, the ISC chair, told the Press Association it was a “welcome clarification” from the Government that documents would be disclosed in full.

Sir Keir said in February that Lord Mandelson was cleared by security vetting, which he criticised for failing to disprove the former Labour grandee’s lies.

When Morgan McSweeney stepped down as Sir Keir’s chief of staff in February, he took “full responsibility” for giving his boss advice that resulted in the “wrong” appointment decision, while also calling for the vetting process to be “fundamentally overhauled”.

Mike Clancy, general secretary of Prospect – the trade union which represents vetting officers at UKSV, said it was “deeply unfortunate” that Downing Street “allowed the impression to circulate that the vetting of Peter Mandelson had not been done correctly by UK Security Vetting”.

He said: “Civil servants, particularly those working in the most sensitive parts of government cannot speak publicly, and deserve ministers to take responsibility for the decisions they take and not to seek to deflect blame onto them.”