LONDON: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Monday said he had made the “wrong judgment” in appointing Labour politician Peter Mandelson as the UK ambassador to Washington, as he faced mounting political pressure over a scandal linked to the diplomat’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
Addressing parliament, Starmer said: “At the heart of this, there is also a judgment I made that was wrong. I should not have appointed Peter Mandelson.”
The prime minister said he would not have proceeded with the appointment if he had known that Mandelson had failed security vetting.
“If I had known before he took up his post that (the) recommendation was that developed vetting clearance should be denied, I would not have gone ahead with the appointment,” he told MPs.
Starmer insisted he was not informed until last week that Mandelson had failed the independent security vetting process.
He also told parliament that Foreign Office officials had failed to pass on the information to senior ministers.
“It beggars belief that throughout the whole timeline of events, officials in the Foreign Office saw fit to withhold this information from the most senior ministers in our system,” he said.
Starmer has said that “full due process” was followed at the time of Mandelson’s appointment, but acknowledged that the outcome was wrong.
His Downing Street office has maintained that Foreign Office rules allowed ministers to override vetting concerns without the direct knowledge of the prime minister.
Last week, Starmer sacked senior Foreign Office official Olly Robbins and ordered a review of the vetting system.
Mandelson was removed from his post nine months into the role after renewed scrutiny of his long-standing association with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who died in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.
He had been appointed as UK envoy to Washington in what Starmer described as an “unconventional” diplomatic choice for an “unconventional administration” in the United States.
Scotland Secretary Douglas Alexander said on Monday that the judgment on Mandelson’s appointment “was wrong” and that the prime minister accepted that assessment.
Opposition leaders have called on Starmer to resign, accusing him of incompetence and mishandling sensitive security matters.
Former Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said Starmer had “misled Parliament over Mandelson” and “misled the country”.
Liberal Democrats leader Ed Davey said the prime minister had shown “catastrophic misjudgment”.
Senior ministers have defended Starmer, saying he acted in good faith and was not informed of the vetting failure.
