𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Sir Keir Starmer is facing calls from every party leader to quit over the Lord Peter Mandelson scandal. The Prime Minister has been accused of misleading MPs after it emerged the peer failed his security vetting but was still appointed as US ambassador.

Sir Keir has insisted he was not aware “until earlier this week”. It comes after The Guardian reported that security officials initially denied Lord Mandelson clearance, but the PM had already named him as Britain’s top diplomat in the US, and the Foreign Office took the rare step of overruling the recommendation.

Foreign Office permanent under-secretary Sir Olly Robbins has been ousted and Downing Street sources say the Prime Minister is “absolutely furious”.

Sir Keir has previously insisted due process was followed and that the Lord Mandelson was given clearance for the plum role.

But Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said the PM had misled Parliament by saying “full due process” was followed, that he had wrongly said Lord Mandelson cleared the vetting, and that he failed to put out all documents required under a parliamentary measure to disclose details of the appointment.

She said: “Each of those three things is a very serious problem for the Prime Minister, unless he can prove all three wrong, he is definitely in resigning territory. There are not enough Conservative MPs to make that happen.

“However, Labour MPs now need to ask themselves, are we prepared to keep this man who has lied and lied again in Downing Street?”

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage accused Sir Keir of having “blatantly lied”.

He said: “Keir Starmer said in February that the security services had given Mandelson ‘clearance for the role’.

“Now we discover that he has blatantly lied, the Prime Minister should resign.”

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said: “Keir Starmer had already made a catastrophic error of judgment. Now it looks as though he has also misled Parliament and lied to the British public. If that is the case, he must go.”

The Green Party has also called for Sir Keir to resign, while Labour backbencher Graham Stringer said that if the Prime Minister was aware that Lord Mandelson had failed his vetting he should resign.

A government spokesperson said: “The security vetting process for Peter Mandelson was sponsored by the FCDO.

“The decision to grant developed vetting to Peter Mandelson against the recommendation of UK Security Vetting was taken by officials in the FCDO.

“Neither the Prime Minister, nor any government minister, was aware that Peter Mandelson was granted developed vetting against the advice of UK Security Vetting until earlier this week.

“Once the Prime Minister was informed he immediately instructed officials to establish the facts about why the developed vetting was granted, in order to enact plans to update the House of Commons.”