Starmer said he would have withdrawn the appointment if he\u2019d known Mandelson had\u00a0failed security checks<\/a>, as he tried to explain why Mandelson was given the U.K.\u2019s most important diplomatic post. Starmer placed blame squarely on Foreign Office officials who he said failed to tell him about the security concerns and approved Mandelson\u2019s appointment despite them.<\/p>\n Starmer told lawmakers in the House of Commons that \u201dI would not have gone ahead with the appointment\u201d had he known the truth. He called it \u201cfrankly staggering\u201d that officials didn\u2019t tell him about the failed vetting.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the heart of this, there is also a judgment I made that was wrong,\u201d Starmer added. \u201cI should not have appointed Peter Mandelson.<\/p>\n \u201cI take responsibility for that decision, and I apologize again to the victims of the pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who were clearly failed by my decision.\u201d<\/p>\n Starmer\u00a0fired Mandelson<\/a>\u00a0in September, nine months into the job, when new details emerged about his friendship with Epstein, a convicted sex offender who\u00a0died in prison in 2019<\/a>.<\/p>\n His explanation was greeted with jeers from opposition lawmakers, incredulous that the nation\u2019s leader hadn\u2019t known about the failed security vetting.<\/p>\n Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch said Starmer\u2019s lack of curiosity was hard to believe.<\/p>\n \u201cIt doesn\u2019t appear that he asked any questions at all. Why? Because he didn\u2019t want to know,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Starmer denies misleading Parliament<\/p>\n Starmer was attempting to set the record straight after repeatedly telling lawmakers that \u201cdue process\u201d was followed when Mandelson was appointed.<\/p>\n Though he apologized for his error of judgment, he denied misleading Parliament, which is usually considered a resigning offense.<\/p>\n Starmer fired the top Foreign Office civil servant, Olly Robbins, within hours of the revelation by The Guardian last week. But allies of Robbins say he never would have been able to share sensitive vetting information with the prime minister.<\/p>\n Robbins is expected to give his own version of events to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday.<\/p>\n Badenoch noted that Robbins is the latest high-profile government departure linked to Mandelson. She said that instead of taking responsibility for his mistakes, Starmer \u201chas thrown his staff and his officials under the bus.\u201d<\/p>\n Ed Davey, leader of the centrist Liberal Democrats, said Starmer \u201cgives every impression of a prime minister in office but not in power.\u201d Davey said appointing Mandelson was \u201ca catastrophic error of judgment. And now that it\u2019s blown up in his face, the only decent thing to do is to take responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n Senior government colleagues have defended the prime minister. Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy said that if Starmer had known about the failed security vetting, \u201che would never, ever have appointed him ambassador.\u201d<\/p>\n But lawmakers in Starmer\u2019s center-left Labour Party, already anxious about its dire poll ratings, are restive. Starmer already\u00a0defused one potential crisis<\/a>\u00a0in February, when some Labour lawmakers urged him to resign over the Mandelson appointment.<\/p>\n He could face a new challenge if, as expected, Labour takes a hammering in local and regional elections on May 7, which give voters a chance to pass a midterm verdict on the government.<\/p>\n Critics say the Mandelson appointment is more evidence of bad judgment by a prime minister who has made\u00a0repeated missteps<\/a>\u00a0since he led Labour to a\u00a0landslide election victory<\/a>\u00a0in July 2024.<\/p>\n Starmer has struggled to deliver promised economic growth, repair\u00a0tattered public services<\/a>\u00a0and ease the cost of living, and has been forced into repeated policy U-turns.<\/p>\n He picked Mandelson as ambassador despite being warned by his staff that Mandelson\u2019s friendship with Epstein exposed the government to \u201creputational risk.\u201d<\/p>\n Mandelson\u2019s business links to Russia and China also set off alarm bells. But his expertise as a former European Union trade chief and contacts among global elites were considered assets in dealing with U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s administration.<\/p>\n A trove of Epstein-related documents<\/a>\u00a0released by the U.S. Department of Justice in January included emails suggesting Mandelson had passed on sensitive, and potentially market-moving, government information to Epstein in 2009, after the global financial crisis.<\/p>\n British police launched a criminal probe and\u00a0arrested Mandelson<\/a>\u00a0in February on suspicion of misconduct in public office. Mandelson has previously denied wrongdoing and\u00a0hasn\u2019t been charged<\/a>. He does not face allegations of sexual misconduct.<\/p>\n Starmer said he had ordered a review into any security concerns arising from Mandelson\u2019s access to sensitive information while ambassador.<\/p>\n Many questions remain unanswered after Starmer\u2019s 2 1\/2-hour question-and-answer session, including why Mandelson failed the vetting and whether officials felt political pressure to approve the appointment.<\/p>\n Several lawmakers asked why Starmer chose Mandelson for the job despite red flags.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m interested in his judgment,\u201d said Scottish National Party lawmaker Stephen Flynn. \u201cDoes he believe himself to be gullible, incompetent or both?\u201d<\/p>\n Sylvia Hui and Brian Melley in London contributed reporting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By JILL LAWLESS LONDON (AP) \u2014 British\u00a0Prime Minister Keir Starmer\u00a0acknowledged Monday that he made the wrong judgment when…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18162,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13,2193,6676,94,5035,8353],"class_list":{"0":"post-18161","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-british-prime-minister","10":"tag-jeffrey-epstein","11":"tag-keir-starmer","12":"tag-peter-mandelson","13":"tag-starmer-calls-for-resignation"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116438614886527417","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18161","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=18161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Britain's](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/AP26110514568407.jpg\")
Britain\u2019s Prime Minister Keir Starmer leaves 10 Downing Street in London, Monday, April 20, 2026 to face a showdown in Parliament over the appointment of Peter Mandelson as ambassador to Washington.(AP Photo\/Alastair Grant)<\/p>\n![\"Peter](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/AP26110514677847.jpg\")
Peter Mandelson is seen outside his home in London, Monday, April 20, 2026 as Britain\u2019s Prime Minister Keir Starmer is facing a showdown in Parliament over the appointment of Peter Mandelson as ambassador to Washington.(AP Photo\/Kin Cheung)
\nWarnings about Epstein ties went unheeded<\/p>\n