Starmer was told about Mandelson red flags

Sir Keir Starmer was warned about the red flags that led to Lord Mandelson failing his developed vetting security clearance, The Telegraph can disclose.

The Prime Minister will argue in the Commons on Monday that it was “unforgivable” he was not told Lord Mandelson had failed the process during his appointment as US ambassador. But senior Whitehall sources said Sir Keir had already been alerted to the underlying security concerns, and pressed ahead with the appointment regardless.

Those concerns centred on Lord Mandelson’s links to Russia and China, which led officials from the UK Security Vetting agency (UKSV) to advise against giving him the green light, sources claimed. That recommendation was later overruled by Sir Olly Robbins, the former Foreign Office chief.

Sir Keir sacked Sir Olly last week, saying it was “staggering” that he had not been told that Lord Mandelson had failed the process. Ministers insisted on Saturday that the Prime Minister would have blocked the appointment had he known.

But senior Whitehall sources told The Telegraph that the UKSV findings largely restated security risks that had already been drawn to Sir Keir’s attention.

One senior source with knowledge of the process said: “The reality is that Starmer had already been warned about the major risks and he had waved them away.”

On Sunday night, ministers issued a statement rejecting Sir Olly’s claims that an obscure law meant he could not tell them about the failed vetting.

Sir Olly is set to tell the foreign affairs select committee on Tuesday that he was prevented from alerting Sir Keir to the findings because of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act of 2010.

But ahead of the Prime Minister’s own appearance before MPs on Monday, No 10 insisted there was no reason that he could not have “sensibly” flagged the issue.

The statement represented the latest escalation in the war of words between Downing Street and Sir Olly, who is said to be taking legal advice over his sacking, which his allies have cast as unfair scapegoating, and is ready to take his case to a tribunal.

He is also expected to argue that he set aside advice from UKSV because the risks surrounding Lord Mandelson were already “priced in”. He has previously told MPs that, by the time the case reached his desk, it was “clear that the Prime Minister wanted to make this appointment himself”.

Kemi Badenoch, the Tory leader, wrote to Sir Keir on Sunday night accusing him of being “contemptuous of Parliament” by failing to answer questions on the scandal. She urged him to “give us the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth”.

Peer’s links to Russia and China

In November, Sir Olly said there had been a process within the Cabinet Office to ensure the Prime Minister was aware of “the issues around” Lord Mandelson’s appointment before it was announced in December 2024.

The Cabinet Office then compiled a due diligence report which was handed to the Prime Minister, and cited concerns about the peer’s ties to China and Russia.

It noted Lord Mandelson’s business interests in China and his “flowery account” of his meeting with Xi Jinping.

It also underscored his previous position as a non-executive director of a Russian conglomerate Sistema, whose chairman was an ally of Vladimir Putin and former Russian prime minister, and the fact he retained the role well after Putin’s annexation of Crimea.

The Telegraph has separately learnt that Lord Mandelson was targeted by Russian intelligence for decades, raising further questions about how much Sir Keir knew of the intelligence community’s concerns about the disgraced peer.

Lord Mandelson’s appointment was announced on Dec 20, 2024, with security vetting commencing afterwards.

The UKSV recommended against granting the Labour peer clearance in private advice given to Sir Olly that he did not share with the Prime Minister. The Telegraph understands that the vetting agency’s findings were similar to the due diligence report.

It is understood that No 10 disputes the suggestion that the contents of the due diligence report meant Sir Keir should have known what the vetting would uncover.

Downing Street is said to see the two processes as significantly different, with the due diligence exercise carried out by civil servants based purely on open-source material, such as media reports, while the vetting involved in-depth interviews and financial checks.

It also stressed that the detail produced in the developed vetting process would be substantially more detailed than the due diligence exercise, and that much more weight would be given to the vetting process, which would be used to determine national security risks.

Developed vetting is the highest level used by the Foreign Office and entails deeper scrutiny than a routine security check. Applicants must undergo a rigorous process that includes a detailed questionnaire, character references from three close contacts, a thorough check of an individual’s personal financial history and an in-depth interview with a security vetting officer.

A Whitehall source said: “As has been repeatedly made clear, the Prime Minister wasn’t told security experts had recommended against clearance.”

It was reported on Sunday night that the peer had been granted the highest level of security clearance despite failing vetting.

He was granted “strap three” clearance, giving him access to information which could put intelligence sources at risk if leaked, according to The Times.

Security sources are concerned that Sir Keir and Sir Olly will compromise the integrity of the vetting process, which is intended to remain highly confidential, when they address MPs this week.

Sources asked what it would mean for the confidence of those undergoing the process, which relies on those seeking clearance to divulge sensitive and private information to interviewing officers.

Sir Keir’s primary defence has been that it was “totally unacceptable that the Prime Minister making an appointment is not told that security vetting has been failed”.

He said on Sunday night that he would make it “crystal clear” to MPs that he had been kept in the dark.

The Prime Minister told the Daily Mirror: “The fact that I wasn’t told when I said to Parliament that due process had been followed is unforgivable, and that’s why I intend to set out in Parliament on Monday the facts behind that, so there’s full transparency in relation to it.”

Lammy and Kendall back PM

David Lammy, the Deputy Prime Minister and former foreign secretary, insisted Sir Keir would have blocked Lord Mandelson from serving had he known he failed security vetting. He also admitted there were “some time pressures” on the appointment.

Liz Kendall also rallied to Sir Keir’s defence, saying: “The one thing about Keir Starmer is that if even at the last minute, the day before the president’s inauguration, he had been told that he had not passed the UK security vetting, he wouldn’t have appointed him.”

The Prime Minister faces a potential leadership challenge over the fiasco, with a number of Labour MPs said to be furious at No 10’s handling of the situation.

Some have said it raised questions about Sir Keir’s judgement, given his decision to appoint Lord Mandelson as ambassador to the US despite his well-documented links to Jeffrey Epstein.

Lord Glasman became the most senior party figure to call on Sir Keir to resign over the vetting fiasco, telling The Telegraph that the Prime Minister “cannot conceivably continue” in its wake.

After Donald Trump’s inauguration in January 2025, Lord Glasman sent Morgan McSweeney, Sir Keir’s then chief of staff, a memo warning him about Lord Mandelson’s connections to Epstein, the convicted paedophile.

He said: “If you can’t own your mistakes, you can’t move. All he needed to say was ‘we made an error’. But he’s completely stuck in saying he hasn’t done anything wrong, so this can’t go away. It’s as straightforward as that, really.”

Labour is projected to lose as many as 2,000 seats in next month’s local elections, which could serve as a catalyst for an attempt to oust Sir Keir as party leader.

A tranche of memos released by the Government last month revealed that those advising the Prime Minister raised serious misgivings about Lord Mandelson before his appointment.

A government spokesman said: “It is misleading to compare initial due diligence checks and in-depth security vetting as these are separate processes undertaken for different reasons.

“Security vetting is carried out by UK Security Vetting using extensive expertise and resources.”

[Source: Daily Telegraph]