Starmer pleads with MPs to save him

Sir Keir Starmer pleaded with Labour MPs on Monday night to back him in a Commons vote on the Mandelson vetting scandal as he scrambled to save his premiership.

MPs will vote on Tuesday on whether the Prime Minister should face an ethics investigation into his handling of the fiasco by the privileges committee, the same body that forced Boris Johnson’s resignation.

Before the crunch vote, Sir Keir held a meeting with Labour MPs on Monday evening in an attempt to convince wavering supporters that they should back him.

No 10 has issued a three-line whip ordering backbenchers to rally behind their Prime Minister, to prevent him from being referred to the committee over claims he misled MPs, or face suspension from the party.

The Prime Minister told Labour MPs: “This is a political stunt by our opponents who want to bring us down, obscure our message, stop us getting on with our work. And the timing tells you everything, nine days before local elections.

“Tomorrow is pure politics and we need to stand together against it.”

He added: “When we stick together and fight together, we are so much stronger.”

Ministers also spent the evening ringing round potential rebels.

Speaking on Monday evening, Sir Keir told Sky News the “stunt” vote would detract from “what matters to millions of people across the country”, arguing: “We’ve got huge amounts of transparency already.”

He also revealed he would resign as Prime Minister if advised to do so by his “absolute rock” wife, Victoria, but said she currently believed he should stay in post.

The vote will take place in the afternoon, but before that MPs will hear evidence about Lord Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador to the United States from Morgan McSweeney, the Prime Minister’s former chief of staff,and Sir Philip Barton, the former head of the Foreign Office.

On Monday night, a letter from Ian Collard, a Foreign Office official who ran the security team within the department, was released, stating that he “felt pressure to deliver a rapid outcome” on Lord Mandelson’s vetting, although this did not influence his professional judgment.

The letter said that Mr Collard did not “personally speak” to No 10 officials and did not believe the pressure had “influenced the professional judgment that was reached by himself or his team” over Lord Mandelson’s vetting.

Sir Keir has insisted there was no pressure whatsoever on officials deciding on the outcome of the vetting.

No 10 published a letter from Sir Chris Wormald, the former Cabinet secretary, which argued the Prime Minister did not act improperly over the peer’s appointment and vetting.

Sir Chris investigated Lord Mandelson’s appointment after the peer resigned in disgrace last year and sent the letter last September. It concluded the process followed by No 10 was “unusual but not irregular” and that Sir Keir followed recommendations from his officials.

Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Commons Speaker, on Monday gave the green light for MPs to vote on whether the Prime Minister should face an ethics investigation by the privileges committee.

In 2022, Sir Keir joined forces with other opposition leaders to try to force an ethics investigation into whether Mr Johnson misled the House over partygate. He urged Tory MPs at the time to “do the right thing” and to “vote in the national interest, not under pressure from party whips”.

The Conservatives claim Sir Keir misled MPs when he said in September that “full due process was followed” when Lord Mandelson was hired as ambassador to the US.

They also claim he misled the Commons by insisting “no pressure whatsoever” had been placed on the Foreign Office to fast-track Mandelson’s security vetting.

Few Labour MPs are expected to vote with the Conservatives to refer Sir Keir to the committee – which could hasten the end of his premiership – but some may abstain from the vote.

One likely rebel told The Telegraph they were “not sure many people will want to vote with the Tories” but that there was “not much appetite to defend the indefensible”.

Another said: “I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of the new intake abstain. They’ve been marched up the hill so many times on things to be marched back down again. What if they end up holding an inquiry anyway?”

Another senior Labour MP said: “Labour MPs aren’t going to vote for chaos in the week leading up to a local election. We will save the chaos for the week after.”

Labour is braced for a wipe-out next week, losing hundreds of seats across England to both Reform UK and the Green Party. Labour is also expected to lose control of the Welsh Senedd for the first time in its history, while the SNP is expected to strengthen its hold on power in Holyrood.

Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, is expected to tell Labour MPs that they should put “country before party” and vote for an investigation, echoing Sir Keir’s own words before Labour won the last general election.

Tory sources said Mrs Badenoch would issue a “direct challenge to Labour MPs to examine their conscience” and ask them to “put their money where their mouth is”.

Sir Keir’s team has pointed to support from Gordon Brown, the former prime minister, and Dame Emily Thornberry, the chairman of the foreign affairs committee, who said any attempt to refer Sir Keir to the privileges committee was driven by “people trying to score points”.

Before the vote, MPs will hear evidence about Lord Mandelson’s appointment from Mr McSweeney and Sir Philip in a related investigation by Dame Emily’s committee.

That investigation was called after it emerged Lord Mandelson was flagged as a security risk after he had been appointed ambassador, but Sir Olly Robbins, the former head civil servant at the Foreign Office, approved him anyway.

Sir Olly, who was sacked over the decision to give Lord Mandelson security clearance, claims he was subject to an “atmosphere of pressure” from No 10 last January and maintains he was right to keep the vetting file away from ministers.

Friends of Sir Olly said they were pleased with Mr Collard’s letter, which has been viewed as a further sign that Sir Keir was wrong to sack him.

One ally said: “The people who have been helping Olly are both very pleased with the letter but, given its contents, more furious than ever about the antics of the last 10 days.”

Sir Philip, Sir Olly predecessor as permanent under secretary in the Foreign Office, is expected to corroborate his claim that Downing Street was keen to appoint Lord Mandelson as fast as possible in late 2024.

A meeting between Mr Collard and Sir Olly last January is central to the Mandelson scandal. Sir Olly told MPs last week that Mr Collard used it to inform him that officials at UK Security Vetting had concluded the disgraced peer’s case was a “borderline” one but that they were “leaning towards recommending that clearance be denied”.

The former mandarin said this contradicted Sir Keir’s claim that Lord Mandelson had “failed” the checks, saying the Prime Minister had a “dangerous misunderstanding” of how the checks worked.

Sir Olly also told the foreign affairs select committee that his department had been under “constant pressure” to approve Lord Mandelson’s vettingand that No 10 had taken a “dismissive approach” to security checks.

The vote on the ethics inquiry is the latest in a series of damaging developments for Sir Keir in the Mandelson saga, which began with the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files by the US department of justice.

No 10 has since been forced to release its own dossier of “Mandelson files”detailing the process behind the peer’s appointment, his work in government and his private contact with ministers.

Darren Jones, the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister, declined to give a timeline for the release of the next batch of files on Tuesday, but said officials had identified a “very significant number of documents” and passed more than 300 they intended to censor to a committee of MPs for review.

‘We’ll only have one chance to switch leaders’

Sir Keir’s allies are furious that the Prime Minister has been dragged into three complex parliamentary processes over the scandal, and believe he has already been transparent with the public by publishing documents about the peer’s appointment.

Although the vote on Tuesday is unlikely to pass, it will be used by Sir Keir’s opponents to attack Labour MPs who vote to save him from the investigation.

Sir Keir’s enemies on the Labour back benches have called for him to be removed after the elections and replaced with a Left-wing alternative, such as Angela Rayner or Andy Burnham.

However, one senior government source told The Telegraph: “We do need to be careful if we switch leaders because we’ll only be given one chance. It’s one and done. We won’t be given the leniency the Tories had with this.”

A No 10 spokesman said: “The Government is engaging with the two parliamentary processes that are already running on Peter Mandelson’s appointment with full transparency.

“This is a desperate political stunt by the Conservative Party the week before the May elections. Their claims have no substance.”

[Source: Daily Telegraph]