Readers can vote in our poll on whether the Prime Minister should resign over the latest Lord Mandelson revelation.
Sir Keir Starmer is on the brink over the Lord Mandelson scandal (Image: Getty)
Sir Keir Starmer is facing calls to quit over the Lord Peter Mandelson vetting scandal. The Prime Minister has been accused of misleading MPs after it emerged the Foreign Office overruled a security vetting process to clear the peer to become US ambassador.
Sir Keir has insisted he did not know until earlier this week and top civil servant Sir Olly Robbins has been sacked. The PM had previously told MPs that “full due process” was followed in the appointment process.
Lord Mandelson and the PM (Image: Getty)
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch told the BBC: “What we have seen is deliberate dishonesty.
“It doesn’t matter which of these stories the Prime Minister has told us, he has lied, and that is resignation time.”
She added: “It is utterly preposterous that throughout this period the Prime Minister did not know that Mandelson failed his security vetting, and (after) all the questions that we’ve been asking over the last seven months, that he, the chief prosecutor, didn’t ask what happened with the security vetting – it just doesn’t add up.”
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage told LBC: “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.”
Speaking in Paris today as he attended a summit on the Iran crisis, Sir Keir said it is “unforgivable” that he was not told Lord Mandelson had failed the security vetting.
The Prime Minister said he was “absolutely furious” and it was “staggering” that he had not been informed the Foreign Office had overruled the recommendation from specialists in the UK Security Vetting team.
Sir Keir said: “That I wasn’t told that Peter Mandelson had failed security vetting when he was appointed is staggering.
“That I wasn’t told that he had failed security vetting when I was telling Parliament that due process had been followed is unforgivable.
“Not only was I not told, no minister was told, and I’m absolutely furious about that.”
He will face MPs on Monday under pressure from opponents to resign for misleading Parliament about the situation.
The Prime Minister said he would “set out all of the relevant facts” to MPs to offer “full transparency and full accountability”
