Senior UK civil servant removed over Mandelson vetting

A diplomatic row at the heart of government has erupted around Keir Starmer after it emerged that the Foreign Office overrode a security vetting recommendation to approve Peter Mandelson as the UK’s ambassador to the US.

The prime minister and Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper have both lost confidence in Foreign Office permanent under-secretary Olly Robbins over the affair, and he is expected to leave the role, according to reports.

Security officials had originally refused to grant Mr Mandelson clearance, before Foreign Office officials took the unusual step of overturning that recommendation.

The government has said the prime minister did not know that the former Labour grandee had been granted developed vetting despite advice from UK Security Vetting until earlier this week.

Sources in Downing Street say Mr Starmer is “absolutely furious”.

Reports on Friday suggested he could make a statement in the Commons on Monday, though Number 10 did not confirm whether he would appear before MPs.

Mr Starmer is due to appear alongside French President Emmanuel Macron while co-hosting a summit in Paris on reopening the Strait of Hormuz, with the two leaders expected to issue a joint statement later in the afternoon.

It is understood that David Lammy, who was foreign secretary when Mr Mandelson was appointed, was also unaware that the Foreign Office had overridden the vetting decision until yesterday afternoon.

The Guardian first reported that security officials had initially denied the peer clearance and that the Foreign Office later stepped in to reverse the recommendation.

A government spokesperson subsequently confirmed that “officials in the FCDO” had decided to grant developed vetting despite that advice.

Starmer’s claims ‘preposterous’

Mr Starmer is now facing calls to quit over the controversy, with Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch branding it “preposterous” to suggest he did not know Mr Mandelson had failed security vetting.

She said: “If the prime minister doesn’t know what’s happening in his own office, he shouldn’t be in charge of our country. He should go.”

Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey said Mr Starmer should have informed Parliament “at the earliest opportunity” after learning what had happened earlier this week, instead of having “waited for the media to force the truth out”.

The Green Party and Reform UK have also demanded Mr Starmer’s resignation.

Mr Mandelson, a political appointee rather than a career diplomat, was removed from his Washington post last September after further details surfaced about his relationship with the convicted paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein, who died in 2019.

Mr Starmer has already come under sustained criticism for appointing Mr Mandelson despite long-standing knowledge that his contacts with Epstein continued after the financier’s conviction for child sex offences.

Scrutiny of that decision deepened last month, when the first tranche of documents linked to the appointment showed he had been warned before announcing Mr Mandelson as ambassador of a “general reputational risk” tied to his association with Epstein.

That warning came from the first stage of checks, carried out by the Cabinet Office and based on material already in the public domain.

The second stage involved highly confidential background vetting by security officials. That process took place after the appointment was announced but before Mr Mandelson formally assumed the role in February 2025.

Any information uncovered during that vetting, including concerns, is not shared with ministers, and the outcome is binary: a candidate is either cleared or barred.

MPs are still waiting for the release of further documents connected to the appointment.

Mr Starmer said in February that Mr Mandelson had passed security vetting, and he criticised the process for failing to disprove what he said were the former Labour grandee’s lies.

When Morgan McSweeney stepped down as Mr Starmer’s chief of staff in February, he said he took “full responsibility” for advising the prime minister in a way that led to the “wrong” appointment decision, while also arguing that the vetting system should be “fundamentally overhauled”.