\u201cAll we want is the truth,\u201d MP Rachael Maskell told POLITICO. \u201cNow a different account of Mr. Mandelson\u2019s security clearance has been brought to light we need accountability as to why we were provided a different version of events.\u201d<\/p>\n
A highly loyal MP, granted anonymity to discuss internal party matters, said Thursday night: \u201cThis is bad, very, very bad. There are so many factors, I don\u2019t know if it will be the end, but it definitely could be.\u201d<\/p>\n
Robbins\u2019 rocky path<\/p>\n
The departure of Robbins is the latest twist in a Whitehall career that has seen the senior official \u2014 once marked out as a future head of the country\u2019s civil service \u2014 take repeated political flak.<\/p>\n
Robbins served as chief Brexit negotiator during the doomed premiership of Theresa May.\u00a0As\u00a0talks with Brussels appeared to be steering the U.K. into a compromise deal, he found himself pilloried as they bogeyman of hardline Tory MPs and newspapers, earning the moniker \u201cthe PM\u2019s Rasputin\u201d in one Times\u00a0article.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
When May was finally ousted in 2019, to be replaced by Boris Johnson, Robbins left government too.<\/p>\n
He went on to roles at Goldman Sachs and then the Hakluyt advisory service. His civil service return came in 2025 as head of the Foreign Office under Starmer\u2019s Labour government.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cAll we want is the truth,\u201d MP Rachael Maskell told POLITICO. \u201cNow a different account of Mr. Mandelson\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15397,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[640,2403,94,5035,460,7312,5,6,461],"class_list":{"0":"post-15396","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"tag-department","9":"tag-diplomacy","10":"tag-keir-starmer","11":"tag-peter-mandelson","12":"tag-security","13":"tag-theresa-may","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-united-states"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116417613475683407","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15396\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}