Starmer nears showdown with sacked official over Mandelson saga

Ellen Milligan, Bloomberg News on Apr 19, 2026

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Keir Starmer is preparing for a showdown with the senior official he sacked over the appointment of Peter Mandelson as U.S. ambassador, as calls for the prime minister to resign grow.

Starmer will make a statement to the House of Commons on Monday to address a fresh row over Mandelson’s security vetting clearance. He’s expected to set out a detailed summary of events surrounding Mandelson’s vetting, following the conclusion of a fact-finding exercise which he ordered. He will make clear that both he and the Commons should have been privy to the information at the time, according to a person familiar.

The next day, Olly Robbins, who Starmer sacked as head of the Foreign Office for approving the appointment without informing him of the failed vetting, is expected to give evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee to give his side. The back-to-back appearances are likely to prove crucial in determining whether the premier hangs on to his job.

Allies of Robbins have told British media including the Sunday Times that the former civil servant was being scapegoated. Officials speaking to Bloomberg argue that Starmer had signaled privately that he was relaxed about Mandelson’s previously known links to Epstein, Russia and China, leading Robbins and his team to feel they were doing the prime minister’s bidding by disregarding concerns and approving his clearance regardless.

Robbins was just weeks into the role at the time and felt the privileged nature of the vetting process meant he was bound not to tell Starmer, his office or anyone outside of a small circle involved in the process about those security concerns, they said.

Starmer’s opponents have raced to criticize the premier, accusing him of misleading Parliament. After days of silence from key cabinet ministers, Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy and Technology Secretary Liz Kendall pledged support for their boss on Sunday.

Kendall said it was wrong for Robbins not to inform the prime minister or the foreign secretary that vetting had advised against the appointment. Starmer is “a man of integrity,” who makes the “right calls” on the big decisions facing the country, Kendall said in an interview with Sky News.

Echoing those remarks, Lammy said that it was “inexplicable” Robbins failed to inform Starmer of the facts.

“I have absolutely no doubt at all, knowing the PM as I do, that had he known that Peter Mandelson had not passed the vetting, he would never, ever have appointed him ambassador,” Lammy, who was foreign secretary at the time, told the Guardian.

Development minister Jenny Chapman told Bloomberg she believes Starmer’s assertion that he was not told about the failed vetting. She warned that the government wouldn’t be “forgiven” for throwing “the country into chaos and turmoil at a time like this” by changing its premier.

Bloomberg reported on Friday that governments aides largely expected Starmer to weather the coming days but that he is badly weakened. Local and regional elections — where Starmer’s Labour party is expected to suffer heavy losses across the country — take place in less than three weeks.

“He is taking the public for fools,” Kemi Badenoch, leader of the Conservatives, said on Friday. “We know that No 10 was told that Mandelson had failed his vetting because journalists told them in September last year. This leaves us with two possibilities: either the Prime Minister is lying or he is so incompetent that he is unfit to run the country.”

“Either way his position is untenable,” she said.

Ed Davey, who heads the Liberal Democrats, also said on Sky News that Starmer had shown “catastrophic misjudgment and that’s why we have said he needs to go.”

Cracks are beginning to emerge within Labour as well, with Lord Glasman becoming the most senior party figure to call on Starmer to resign, the Telegraph newspaper reported.

“He cannot conceivably continue as a credible Prime Minister any longer. And that’s all because he cannot say ‘I made a mistake, I’m sorry’,” Glasman, who is the founder of the Blue Labour movement, told the newspaper.

The outcry over the Mandelson appointment is leaving Starmer in a vulnerable position. Losses at the May 7 elections could open the premier up to leadership challenges, with the Sun reporting that Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham and former Deputy PM Angela Rayner held a “secret meeting” on Friday.