{"id":743635,"date":"2026-04-21T18:52:44","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T18:52:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/743635\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T18:52:44","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T18:52:44","slug":"fired-former-uk-official-says-he-felt-political-pressure-to-approve-peter-mandelson-as-us-ambassador","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/743635\/","title":{"rendered":"Fired former UK official says he felt political pressure to approve Peter Mandelson as US ambassador"},"content":{"rendered":"

LONDON (AP) \u2014 The former head of Britain\u2019s foreign service said Tuesday he was pressured by Prime Minister Keir Starmer\u2019s office to rush through the confirmation of Peter Mandelson<\/a> as British ambassador to Washington, and claimed Downing Street brushed aside security concerns<\/a> about the choice.<\/p>\n

The testimony by Olly Robbins increases the heat on Starmer, who is facing calls to resign<\/a> over the decision to appoint Mandelson, a scandal-tainted politician and friend of Jeffrey Epstein<\/a>, to one of the U.K.\u2019s most important diplomatic posts.<\/p>\n

Robbins, the former top civil servant in the Foreign Office, said there was an \u201catmosphere of pressure\u201d from Starmer\u2019s 10 Downing St. office to approve the appointment so Mandelson could be in the post at the start of U.S. President Donald Trump<\/a> \u2019s second term. <\/p>\n

He told the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee there had been \u201ca very, very strong expectation\u201d that Mandelson \u201cneeded to be in post and in America as quickly as humanly possible.\u201d He said Downing Street had \u201ca generally dismissive attitude\u201d toward the requirement for tough security checks.<\/p>\n

The prime minister fired Robbins last week after the revelation that Mandelson was approved for the job in January 2025 against the recommendation of the government\u2019s security vetting agency.<\/p>\n

Robbins said the vetting agency considered Mandelson a \u201cborderline case\u201d and was \u201cleaning toward recommending against\u201d giving him security clearance. Robbins cleared him anyway, based on advice that the risks could be managed, he said.<\/p>\n

Robbins said the concerns about Mandelson didn\u2019t relate to his relationship with Epstein, but he declined to explain to lawmakers what led the government\u2019s vetting agency to flag him as a potential security risk.<\/p>\n

Mandelson had to resign twice from senior posts in previous Labour Party governments because of scandals over money and ethics. A separate background report prepared before he was appointed ambassador flagged potential business links to Russia and China as a concern.<\/p>\n

Politicians wanted the appointment approved<\/p>\n

Starmer has called it \u201cstaggering\u201d that Foreign Office officials failed to tell him about the security concerns, which he says he only found out about last week. Robbins said the rules bar details of the sensitive vetting process from being shared except in \u201cexceptional circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n

Starmer announced the choice of Mandelson in December 2024, before intensive security checks were carried out. Robbins said he was \u201cvery conscious\u201d that refusing Mandelson security clearance would have caused \u201ca real problem for the government and a problem for the country\u201d in its relations with the Trump administration.<\/p>\n

Robbins declined to identify any individuals as being behind the pressure. Starmer\u2019s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, a prot\u00e9g\u00e9 of Mandelson, resigned in February<\/a>, saying he took responsibility for the decision to appoint Mandelson.<\/p>\n

The leader of the opposition Conservative Party, Kemi Badenoch, said Starmer \u201cpersonally decided to appoint a serious known national security risk to our most sensitive diplomatic post.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe prime minister is not fit for office,\u201d she said. \u201cIt is time for him to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Starmer acknowledged on Monday that he made the wrong judgment when he picked Mandelson for the job, but said he would have withdrawn the appointment if he\u2019d known about the failed security vetting.<\/p>\n

Starmer fired Mandelson<\/a> in September, nine months into the job, when new details emerged about his friendship with Epstein, a convicted sex offender who died in prison in 2019<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The U.K. leader has ordered a review of security concerns arising from Mandelson\u2019s access to sensitive information while ambassador.<\/p>\n

Questions over Starmer\u2019s judgment<\/p>\n

Critics say the Mandelson appointment is more evidence of bad judgment by a prime minister who has made repeated missteps<\/a> since he led the center-left Labour Party to a landslide election victory<\/a> in July 2024.<\/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 Mandelson\u2019s expertise as a former European Union trade chief and contacts among global elites were considered assets in dealing with the Trump administration.<\/p>\n

Starmer says he won\u2019t resign, but the scandal has caused gloom among lawmakers in his center-left Labour Party, already anxious about its dire poll ratings. Starmer already defused one potential crisis<\/a> in February, when some Labour lawmakers urged him to quit 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

Rob Ford, professor of politics at the University of Manchester, said that regardless of the complexities and blame-trading, the view of many voters boils down to: \u201cKeir Starmer appointed Peter Mandelson. Peter Mandelson was a wrong-un and he hung out with Jeffrey Epstein.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd none of this that we\u2019ve seen today or any other day does anything except reinforce that,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s just disastrous\u201d for Starmer.<\/p>\n

Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said he had raised concerns about the choice of ambassador, but didn\u2019t think Starmer should resign over the debacle.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf every time a prime minister made a mistake they resigned, we would shuttle through prime ministers like nobody\u2019s business,\u201d Miliband told the BBC.<\/p>\n

Mandelson is under police investigation for suspected misconduct in public office after a trove of Epstein-related documents<\/a> released by the U.S. Justice Department in January included emails suggesting that Mandelson had passed on sensitive \u2014 and potentially market-moving \u2014 government information to Epstein in 2009, after the global financial crisis.<\/p>\n

British police launched a criminal investigation and arrested Mandelson<\/a> in February. Mandelson has previously denied wrongdoing and hasn\u2019t been charged<\/a>. He doesn\u2019t face allegations of sexual misconduct.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON (AP) \u2014 The former head of Britain\u2019s foreign service said Tuesday he was pressured by Prime Minister…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":743636,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,7838,84,69,39732,90,57,15053,17723,250467,50,45805,80,25928,376,4338,67,370,93,103,107],"class_list":["post-743635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","tag-business","tag-diplomacy","tag-district-of-columbia","tag-donald-trump","tag-ed-miliband","tag-elections","tag-general-news","tag-jeffrey-epstein","tag-keir-starmer","tag-morgan-mcsweeney","tag-news","tag-peter-mandelson","tag-politics","tag-rob-ford","tag-united-kingdom","tag-united-kingdom-government","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-government","tag-washington-news","tag-world","tag-world-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116444210748398807","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=743635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/743636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=743635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=743635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=743635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}