U.K.’s Starmer faces calls to quit over Mandelson security vet. Here’s why

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is facing renewed calls to resign over his decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the U.S. after the government said he failed security vetting and was still allowed to take up the job.

Mandelson, 72, was fired from the most prestigious posting in Britain’s diplomatic service in September, when the depth of his friendship with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein started to become clear.

The new information that Mandelson initially failed the vetting, but was still given the role, increases the political pressure on Starmer, whose defense rests on the assertion that he was not told about the vetting failure until this week.

The leaders of the main opposition political parties have called for Starmer to resign, accusing him of misleading the public and parliament by suggesting that Mandelson had passed vetting.

If Starmer was found to have knowingly, or recklessly, misled parliament, he would have broken the code that governs ministers’ behavior and would be expected to resign, according to government rules.

Ed Davey, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, has said a parliamentary committee should investigate if Starmer made misleading statements to lawmakers.

Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson was forced to resign in 2022 in part because of months of embarrassing headlines about illicit parties held in government buildings ​during the COVID pandemic and accusations he misled parliament.

Amber Rudd, Britain’s then-interior minister, resigned in 2018 after she said she had inadvertently misled parliament about government targets for deporting people who were allegedly living in Britain illegally.

Starmer said on Friday it was “staggering” that he had not been told Mandelson had failed his security vetting.

The prime minister said he would make a statement to parliament on Monday to clarify what he knew about the vetting and answer questions from lawmakers.

The foreign secretary said in September that the vetting of potential ambassadors is carried out independently of ministers, who “are not informed of any findings other than the final outcome.”

A letter from the Foreign Office in January last year offering Mandelson the job as ambassador, and released by parliament last month, suggested that Mandelson had passed the security vetting.

“Your security clearance has been confirmed by Vetting Unit and is valid until 29 January 2030,” the letter said.

Starmer survived calls to resign in February when he was forced to acknowledge that the material used to vet Mandelson contained details of his relationship with Epstein.

The immediate danger for Starmer is whether there is evidence that Starmer, or his senior advisers, knew that Mandelson had failed the vetting. If it exists, this would contradict the prime minister’s defense.

The foreign office’s top official, Olly Robbins, who was sacked by Downing Street late on Thursday, has been asked to appear before a parliamentary committee on Tuesday to explain what happened.

Starmer in September repeatedly told parliament that “full due process” was followed.

In February, Starmer told reporters security vetting had been carried out by security services and used this as a defense for why he had appointed Mandelson despite his past links to Epstein being known.

A leadership challenge can be triggered if there is enough support behind a candidate to replace Starmer, who has the lowest approval ratings of any prime minister on record.

Candidates to replace the prime minister would need to meet an 81-lawmaker threshold, as things currently stand, according to the Labour Party’s rules. Starmer would automatically be on the ballot paper in any such contest.

It is generally harder for Labour lawmakers to remove a prime minister than those from the rival Conservative Party, which went through five prime ministers in eight years from 2016, because the Labour rebels have to support specific candidates, rather than just register ‘no confidence’ in the leader.

Labour members of parliament have never successfully removed a sitting prime minister in the party’s more than 125-year history.

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair set a deadline for his departure after some junior members of his government resigned in 2006, but he did not quit immediately.