Badenoch calls on Starmer to resign after he is accused of misleading MPs over Mandelson vetting
Peer reportedly failed security vetting but was still handed the job of British ambassador to the US
Kemi Badenoch has said Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer must resign over reports Lord Peter Mandelson failed security vetting and was still handed the job of US ambassador.
The UK Conservative leader made the comments during a campaign visit to Edinburgh, where she said this is a clear breach of the ministerial code.
Sir Keir was not aware that the Foreign Office overruled a security vetting process for Lord Peter Mandelson to become UK ambassador to Washington “until earlier this week”, the government said.
In response to a question from The Scotsman, Ms Badenoch said: “Three very significant things have happened, and all three of them are resigning offences for the Prime Minister.
“The first is that he misled parliament because he said full due process was followed and if Mandelson failed the vetting and was still appointed, then full due process wasn’t followed.
“The second is he sad at a press conference in February that Mandelson cleared security vetting - that was not true.
“That is a breach of the ministerial code, a resigning offence. He lied, not just to parliament, but to the country and has never corrected the record.
“The third thing is that he was supposed to put all of these documents into he humble address and we found out about this through the press, which means there was a cover-up.
“Each of these three things is a veryserious problem for the Prime Minister, and unless he can prove all three wrong, he is definitely in resigning territory.”
She added: “Labour MPs need to ask themselves, are we prepared to keep this man who has lied and lied again in Downing Street?
“This is on them. They are all going to be part of his cover-up and his mess if they keep him there.
“If he’s lied about this, then what else has he lied to us about that we haven’t discovered?”
The Guardian reported that security officials initially denied Lord Mandelson clearance, but the Prime Minister had already named him as Britain’s top diplomat in the US, and the Foreign Office took the rare step of overruling the recommendation.
Sir Keir has previously insisted due process was followed in the appointment, and that Lord Mandelson had lied about the extent of his links with paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.
A government spokesperson said: “The security vetting process for Peter Mandelson was sponsored by the FCDO.
“The decision to grant developed vetting to Peter Mandelson against the recommendation of UK Security Vetting was taken by officials in the FCDO.
“Neither the Prime Minister, nor any government minister, was aware that Peter Mandelson was granted developed vetting against the advice of UK Security Vetting until earlier this week.
“Once the Prime Minister was informed he immediately instructed officials to establish the facts about why the developed vetting was granted, in order to enact plans to update the House of Commons.”
They said the Government is committed to complying with the parliamentary motion to disclose documents relating to Lord Mandelson’s appointment “in full as soon as possible”.
Documents to be provided to the parliamentary intelligence and security committee (ISC) as part of the disclosure will include documents provided to the FCDO by UK Security Vetting, the spokesperson said.
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said: “Keir Starmer had already made a catastrophic error of judgment. Now it looks as though he has also misled Parliament and lied to the British public. If that is the case, he must go.
“Labour came into government on a promise to clean up politics. Instead we’re seeing the same old sleaze, scandal and cover-ups as we did under the Conservatives.”
The Green Party and Reform UK also called for Sir Keir to resign.
Lord Mandelson, a political appointment rather than a career diplomat, was sacked from his Washington role last September when more details emerged about his relationship with Epstein, who died in 2019.
Sir Keir has been under fire over the decision to give Lord Mandelson the job despite it being known that his dealings with Epstein continued after the financier’s conviction for child sex offences.
Questions over his judgment intensified after the first batch of documents related to the decision published last month showed that he was warned before announcing Lord Mandelson’s ambassadorship of a “general reputational risk” over his association with Epstein.
That warning stemmed from the first part of the checks, carried out by the Cabinet Office, which was based on information in the public domain at the time.
The second was the highly confidential background vetting by security officials, which followed the announcement but before Lord Mandelson took up his role in February 2025.
Information unearthed in this process – including any concerns – is never shared with ministers, and the result is binary, either clearing the candidate or barring them.
Foreign Office officials deployed a rarely used authority to override the decision to deny Lord Mandelson clearance, and he was told days later that he had passed, according to The Guardian.
More documents are yet to be released at the behest of MPs.
The Guardian reported that senior Government officials have been weighing whether to withhold documents from Parliament that would show Lord Mandelson failed the security vetting.
Some material is expected not to be published either because it relates to a police investigation into Lord Mandelson, or because Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee believes it could jeopardise national security or diplomatic relations.
But keeping documents from the committee could amount to a breach of the Conservative motion to release “all papers relating to Lord Mandelson’s appointment”.
Sir Keir said in February that Lord Mandelson was cleared by security vetting, which he criticised for failing to disprove the former Labour grandee’s lies.
He said: “There was a due diligence exercise that culminated in questions being asked because I wanted to know the answer to certain issues.
“That’s why those questions were asked. The answers to those questions were not truthful.
“There was then, I should add, security vetting carried out independently by the security services, which is an intensive exercise that gave him clearance for the role, and you have to go through that before you take up the post.
“Clearly, both the due diligence and the security vetting need to be looked at again.
“I’ve already strengthened the due process. I think we need to look at the security vetting because it now transpires that what was being said was not true. And had I known then what I know now, I’d never have appointed him in the first place.”
When Morgan McSweeney stepped down as Sir Keir’s chief of staff in February, he took “full responsibility” for giving his boss advice that resulted in the “wrong” appointment decision, while also calling for the vetting process to be “fundamentally overhauled”.
Mike Clancy, general secretary of Prospect, the trade union which represents vetting officers at UKSV, said: “It is deeply unfortunate that following the resignation of Morgan McSweeney, Downing Street allowed the impression to circulate that the vetting of Peter Mandelson had not been done correctly by UK Security Vetting.
“Not only were UKSV put in an invidious position by being asking to conduct vetting after an appointment had been announced, but now deeply troubling reports have appeared in the media claiming that UKSV advice was overruled.
“Civil servants, particularly those working in the most sensitive parts of government cannot speak publicly, and deserve ministers to take responsibility for the decisions they take and not to seek to deflect blame onto them.”
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