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Mandelson vetting decision "utterly unacceptable" - chief secretary to PM
With the prime minister in Paris for talks on the opening of the strait of Hormuz, his chief secretary, Darren Jones, has been taking flak for the Mandelson vetting revelations on the morning media rounds.
Jones has told broadcasters the Foreign Office’s decision to overrule the security vetting findings was “utterly unacceptable”
He said he had ordered an urgent review after discovering that the Foreign Office and other Government departments have the right to ignore security advice when appointing people to sensitive roles.
He told Sky News:
It is utterly unacceptable, not just in the individual case of Peter Mandelson and respect of the prime minister’s fury at the Foreign Office for not having taught him this information, but the very fact that their processes were in place that allow for that to happen in the first place.
That’s why in my role in the Cabinet Office, immediately last night, I suspended the rights for these organisations to make these judgments.
I’ve asked for an urgent review about what decisions these organisations have taken in the past to overrule the recommendations from UK security vetting, and I was due to announce a broader, independent review of the vetting process anyway. And this will now be part of that.
Earlier on ITV’s Good Morning Britain programme, Jones said he had suspended the rights of the Foreign Office to overrule security vetting recommendations. He said:
As soon as I found out last night that the Foreign Office and a small number of other organisations have the right to ignore the recommendation… I immediately suspended those rights and ordered an urgent audit.
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SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn has called on the prime minister to “do the right thing” and resign.
Keir Starmer has faced more pressure to quit after it was revealed that the Foreign Office overruled a recommendation not to clear Peter Mandelson to be the UK ambassador to the US.
While the prime minister is said to be “furious” at the decision and the Foreign Office’s top civil servant Olly Robbins was effectively fired, the prime minister remains in the hot seat.
“The resignation of Olly Robbins does not get the prime minister off the hook – it only raises more questions,” the SNP’s Westminster leader said.
“Keir Starmer has run out of excuses, and fall guys, to blame for his own bad judgment and incompetence. He should do the decent thing and resign – before he is forced out.”
Not all Labour MPs are angry about the story. In fact, Patrick Hurley, the MP for Southport, called it “a big fuss over nothing”.
He told Sky News:
Olly Robbins isn’t even a household name in his own household, and the general public will be utterly bemused that this has come up again in the media discourse.
The idea that the prime minister will be forced out over the appointment of someone to an ambassadorial role is like something out of a bad US sitcom that gets cancelled after three shows.
By an order of magnitude, the bigger problem for us is the shock from the Iran war, the ongoing challenge on prices of consumer goods and the very long shadow of Liz Truss’s mini budget. Everything else is a sideshow.
'Nobody believes PM' not aware of failed vetting, says Abbott
Veteran Labour MP Diane Abbott has said “nobody believes that the prime minister” was not aware of Peter Mandelson’s failed vetting.
Mandelson failed his security vetting clearance but the decision was overruled by the Foreign Office to ensure he could take up his post as ambassador to the US, an investigation by the Guardian revealed last night.
According to multiple sources, Mandelson was initially denied clearance in late January 2025 after a developed vetting process, a highly confidential background check by security officials.
Abbott told Sky News:
It’s just not possible that No 10 didn’t know. And I think to try and pretend No 10 didn’t know, when anybody who follows those issues would know that that can’t be true, is the kind of thing that undermines people’s faith in politics.
She added that Starmer should “consider his position” and said:
It’s always been the process that if you mislead the House, you have to step down.
Plaid Cymru leader Rhun ap Iorwerth said “there is no trust without transparency” as he called on No 10 to “admit its incompetence”.
In a post on X, he wrote:
No trust without transparency. So many questions remain unanswered and with every passing day the Prime Minister is distracted from the day job and failing those he serves.
It’s time for the No10 operation to come clean or admit its incompetence.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has called for the prime minister to stand down.
Posting on X, Farage said: “It’s time for Keir Starmer to go.”
Farage told broadcasters that the Foreign Office’s top civil servant Olly Robbins is the “sacrificial lamb in an attempt to try and save the Prime Minister”.
He told LBC: “None of this adds up, the idea they weren’t told about the vetting. Remember, in the House of Commons, Starmer actually said that the vetting had told him about the ongoing relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, then outside of the House, in Hastings, he gave a speech in which he said that Mandelson had cleared security vetting.
“They are all over the place on this, it is totally unbelievable and Robbins, he’s the sacrificial lamb in an attempt to try and save the Prime Minister, and it just isn’t good enough.”
Farage said it is not credible or believable that the Government waited until Thursday to reveal security vetting procedures had been overruled because it wanted to launch a “full-scale investigation”.
The Reform UK leader told LBC the explanation is: “Just not credible, not believable in any way at all. I am in absolutely no doubt in my mind that this Prime Minister misled the House of Commons and lied to the country outside of the House of Commons.”
Farage said Robbins is “one of the most professional civil servants in this country” and “there is no way” he would have decided to overrule security vetting procedures alone.
The Reform UK leader told LBC: “There is no way a man like that would unilaterally make a decision of this kind, and, equally, the Prime Minister cannot stand up and say that Mandelson passed security vetting and now claim later he wasn’t told.
“That’s not incompetence, even Keir Starmer is not that incompetent, it is outright, blatant dishonesty.”
The Green Party leader for England and Wales, Zack Polanski, has called for Keir Starmer to resign.
Posting on X, Polanski said:
There’s no way today should end without Starmer’s resignation. Any other outcome would be an absurd scenario where this Labour Government – and all in it – would be laughing in our faces.
The ethics and morality are it (sic) are an important question. Just as vital and urgent is the fact it’s all such a distraction.
We have sky high bills and an energy crisis – we need to end Rip Off Britain. All attention needs to be on a Government capable of doing the basics.
Friday’s newspapers and broadcasters were dominated by the Guardian’s revelations that Peter Mandelson failed his security vetting clearance but the decision was overruled by the Foreign Office to ensure he could take up his post as ambassador to the US.
The story splashed on the front pages of the Daily Mail, Express, Daily Telegraph, The Times, the i Paper and the Financial Times.
The Mail leads with “Starmer on brink as his Mandelson ‘lies’ are exposed”. The paper says party leaders have accused the prime minister of “lying to MPs and say he must now resign”, while the i leads with “Starmer in peril again as No 10 turns on the Foreign Office”.
The BBC on both radio and television, as well as Sky News, Times Radio, LBC and other commercial stations have all been leading with the story on their bulletins.
Here’s a round-up of the papers:
Last night there were calls for Sir Olly Robbins to appear again before Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee to explain what happened – but now questions are being asked as to whether he will be able to give an account of what happened in light of his resignation.
Emily Thornberry, senior Labour MP and the committee’s chairwoman, told Sky News last night: “Perhaps he can tell us… was it his own idea, or was he being leant on elsewhere?
“Or was he, being a civil servant, was he getting direction from elsewhere, and if so, by whom?”
She also pointed to the careful language in a letter she received from Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper on the vetting process, which noted that: “The vetting process was undertaken by UK Security Vetting on behalf of the FCDO and concluded with DV clearance being granted by the FCDO.”
Thornberry said: “It says he was vetted, and it says he was appointed, but it doesn’t say it was overridden… I’m saying is that, you know, people have basically been telling us half the story.”
Foreign secretary only aware of Mandelson vetting fail when Guardian broke story
Pippa Crerar
The Guardian understands that Yvette Cooper and her office only became aware that Peter Mandelson had failed security vetting when the newspaper broke the story on Thursday.
The foreign secretary spent the evening in the department and Downing Street with the prime minister where she spoke to Sir Olly Robbins. They concluded that he could no longer continue in post.
Jones denied reports that senior government officials have been considering whether to withhold from parliament sensitive documents that show Mandelson failed security vetting before he assumed the role of US ambassador.
Asked by BBC Radio 4’s Today programme about the reports, he said “That’s not true”.
Jones said the process required the documents to go to Metropolitan Police and the Intelligence and Security Committee before they are published. He added:
We’ve already published one tranche of documents and we’ll publish another tranche soon.
Asked why the prime minister did not correct the record in the House of Commons when he appeared at prime minister’s questions, Jones said Starmer wanted to wait to have “all the facts” before appearing before the house, which he intends to do on Monday.
