Labour MPs vent fury at Starmer’s ‘toxic culture’

Sir Keir Starmer has been accused of creating a “toxic culture” by his own MPs after the latest Mandelson scandal revelations.

The Prime Minister is facing a growing backlash from within Labour after claims No 10 forced through Lord Mandelson’s appointment as US ambassador despite warnings from vetting officials.

There is also mounting disquiet in Cabinet, with Yvette Cooper and Ed Miliband publicly distancing themselves from the Prime Minister over the row.

In the most damaging day to date for Sir Keir, Downing Street was accused of “bullying” Sir Olly Robbins into approving the disgraced peer’s security clearance. He was sacked as head of the Foreign Office last week.

Sir Olly claimed that Downing Street had put him under “constant pressure” to clear Lord Mandelson and, in an apparent revenge attack on his former boss, revealed Sir Keir had secretly pushed for a second disgraced peer to receive a diplomatic post.

Imran Hussain, the Labour MP for Bradford East, said the culture created by Sir Keir had divided his party.

He told the Commons: “At the heart of this is a toxic and dismissive culture at No 10. At some point we can not get away from it.

“That divisiveness has led us to this place. This is not a small administration breach, it is a matter of national security.”

Ian Byrne, the Labour MP for Liverpool West Derby, said Lord Mandelson’s appointment “reflects a wider direction under the Prime Minister” and said a “toxic culture” has been allowed to “take hold of No 10 and the governing of our country”.

Another MP told The Telegraph that Sir Keir was now a “dead man walking”and could be challenged for the party leadership.

“How long can this zombie administration continue?” they said. “It’s over for him. He can’t come back from this. Someone needs to put an arm around him and say: it’s over.”

Sir Keir sacked Sir Olly for his department’s “staggering” decision not to tell No 10 that Lord Mandelson had failed security vetting, but the mandarin told the foreign affairs committee on Tuesday that he was only following government policy at the time.

Sir Olly accused Downing Street of putting the Foreign Office under “constant pressure” to clear Lord Mandelson’s vetting and claimed No 10 took a “dismissive approach” to the security checks, revealing that officials had even queried whether they were needed at all.

In testimony to MPs, Sir Olly argued that the peer’s appointment as ambassador to the US was being treated as a fait accompli by the time he arrived at the department in January last year.

Dame Emily Thornberry, the chairman of the foreign affairs committee, also referred to a previous claim that Sir Olly’s predecessor had been told to “just f---ing approve” the appointment.

She told MPs the instruction was reported to have been relayed by Morgan McSweeney, Sir Keir’s then chief of staff, to Sir Philip Barton, who was the top civil servant at the Foreign Office when Lord Mandelson’s appointment was announced in December 2024.

Mr McSweeney has denied that claim.

Sir Olly said he did not believe that Mr McSweeney would use that language, and added he had “no memory” of his predecessor mentioning such a call.

Mr McSweeney denied the reports on Tuesday afternoon, telling Politico that he had not called Sir Philip directly, nor had he sworn at him.

Dame Emily is expected to call Sir Philip and Mr McSweeney to appear before her committee in the coming weeks.

After hearing Sir Olly’s testimony, Dame Emily went further and accused Sir Keir’s allies of bullying Sir Olly into approving Lord Mandelson.

Asked whether she thought the mandarin was bullied, she told LBC: “I do, yeah,” adding that Sir Olly “didn’t want to say that” to MPs despite the “undue pressure” he was under from No 10.

The ousted mandarin used his appearance before the committee to reveal that Sir Keir’s team had tried to give an ambassadorial post to Lord Doyle, the former No 10 communications chief who has since been suspended from the party for campaigning for a paedophile.

Sir Olly said he had been under “strict instruction not to discuss that” with David Lammy, the then foreign secretary, “which was uncomfortable”.

The career civil servant said he blocked the idea, which he said would be “hard for me personally to defend” when other diplomats were losing their jobs.

Lord Doyle, who has apologised for campaigning for someone who had been charged with and was later convicted of child sex offences, denied any knowledge of the job search and said he intended to stay in UK politics after leaving No 10 in March last year.

While the Cabinet stopped short of criticising Sir Keir directly over the scandal, ministers were publicly critical of the Prime Minister’s handling of diplomatic appointments.

Ms Cooper, Mr Lammy’s successor as Foreign Secretary, rebuked Sir Keir over the Lord Doyle plan, saying appointing him “would not have been appropriate”.

She added that she was “extremely concerned” about Sir Olly’s claim that he had been ordered to keep Mr Lammy in the dark.

Meanwhile, Mr Miliband revealed he had warned against appointing Lord Mandelson as ambassador, saying that Mr Lammy had shared his concerns.

Mr Miliband told Sky News that he agreed that Lord Mandelson “should never have been appointed” and that he “steered well clear” of him when he was Labour leader.

When asked whether Sir Keir had not listened, he said: “He made a judgment. Prime ministers make judgments, and sometimes they get those judgments right and sometimes they don’t get them right.”

A government source dismissed his intervention as “spineless” and accused him of trying to distance himself from the Mandelson scandal.

But Angela Rayner, who is tipped to stand for the Labour leadership if Sir Keir steps down, defended Mr Miliband and described him as “my friend Ed” amid speculation that the pair could form a pact.

In a coded warning to No 10, she added that it “could not be a worse time” to copy the policies of Reform or the Green Party and described herself as “pro-business and pro-growth”.

She called on Sir Keir to take “bold action”, including on housing, transport, energy and water bills, and to pursue an aggressive workers’ rights agenda.

A government source said that Sir Keir would limp on because “everyone is depressed, but nobody is resigning”, despite concerns about the Prime Minister’s handling of the scandal in Cabinet, which met to discuss it on Tuesday morning.

However, the Mandelson scandal has put Sir Keir under further political pressure ahead of the local elections on May 7, where Labour is expected to lose hundreds of English council seats to Reform UK and overall control of the Senedd to Plaid Cymru.

It also emerged on Tuesday night that the next government release of the Mandelson files, which will include documents about vetting, are unlikely to be released before the King’s Speech on May 13.

[Source: Daily Telegraph]