Political News
Starmer says officials should have shared Mandelson vetting failure
By Frank Prenesti
Date: Monday 20 Apr 2026
(Sharecast News) - Beleaguered UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said civil servants should have share information that former ambassador to the US Peter Mandelson had failed an enhanced security vetting check.
He told a packed House of Commons that that it "beggars belief" that Foreign Office officials "saw fit to withhold this information from the most senior ministers in our system, in government", adding that he would not have proceeded with the app appointment had he known about the vetting failure.
Starmer is under intense pressure to resign amid the long-running saga surrounding Mandelson and his links to dead paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
The Guardian last week reported the Foreign Office overruled a decision to deny Mandelson's security vetting clearance for the Washington job. The outcry saw Starmer fire the department's head Olly Robbins, who was not even in post when the decision to appoint the former Labour government minister was made.
Starmer on Monday added that it was "surely beyond doubt that the recommendation from UK Security Vetting that Peter Mandelson should be denied development and clearance was information that could and should have been shared with me on repeated occasions"
Mandelson was fired last year September last year after Bloomberg revealed he had given answers that were "not truthful" to the Cabinet Office's vetting process. Robbins is scheduled to give his own account of events in testimony to the all-party Foreign Affairs Committee.
The ruling Labour Party, trailing heavily in the polls after a series of policy blunders, faces an electoral bloodbath for the party in May's contests in local English council elections as well as the Scottish and Welsh parliaments.
Scottish Secretary Douglas Alexander told Sky News he expected Starmer to survive to lead Labour into the next general election "but there are no certainties" in politics.
Starmer's office issued a statement on Sunday night saying that although the decision on vetting was taken by civil servants there was nothing in the law to prevent ministers being told.
"There is nothing in the guidance which prevented information being shared in this scenario, in a proportionate and necessary way and subject to the appropriate procedural steps," the statement on the Constitutional Reform & Governance Act said.
Reporting by Frank Prenesti for Sharecast.com
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