The ex-top Foreign Office official said the risks in appointing the controversial Labour figure as U.K. ambassador to Washington were made clear to the PM before his appointment.
LONDON — Parts of Keir Starmer’s government believed there was “no need” to obtain full security vetting for Peter Mandelson before making him Britain’s ambassador to the U.S. in late 2024, a former top civil servant alleged Tuesday.
Olly Robbins, who the prime minister sacked in a bitter row over the vetting process last week, said there was a “generally dismissive attitude” about the need to obtain clearance for the controversial Labour figure as time ticked down to Donald Trump’s inauguration in 2025.
In his first comments defending himself since his ousting, Robbins told a hearing of the House of Commons’ Foreign Affairs Committee: “A position taken from the Cabinet Office was that there was no need to vet Mandelson, he was a member of the House of Lords, he was a privy counsellor.”
The risks were “well known and had been made clear to the Prime Minister before appointment,” he said.
“In the end, the [Foreign Office] insisted and put its foot down,” he added. “I understand my predecessor had to be very firm in person, but that was a live debate at the point of announcement.”
Robbins did not immediately produce any evidence for his claim. He only started his job as Foreign Office permanent under secretary — its top civil servant — in January 2025, midway through the Mandelson appointment process.
Robbins told MPs there was a “very very strong expectation … coming from No. 10 that [Mandelson] needed to be in post and in America as quickly as possible.”
“Throughout January, my office, the foreign secretary’s office, were under constant pressure. There was an atmosphere of constant chasing,” Robbins said.
Robbins’ comments are a direct challenge to Starmer, who has insisted he would not have appointed Mandelson if he had known that a vetting officer recommended he be denied clearance — a fact that Robbins kept to himself.
Robbins confirmed in the hearing that he did not tell No. 10 about the recommendation and discussed it only in a meeting with the Foreign Office’s security chief Ian Collard, believing the confidentiality of the process forbade him from doing so. Starmer has insisted Robbins could and should have told him.
The ex-top official said that the recommendation from UK Security Vetting, the government’s agency, came only in an oral briefing in which he was told it was a “borderline case,” and officers were merely “leaning” against recommending Mandelson’s clearance. No. 10 has since seen a document that it says definitively stated Mandelson should be denied clearance.
Robbins alleged there had been “very frequent” phone calls between No. 10 and Foreign Office private offices along the lines of “has this been delivered yet.” However, he clarified that no one in No. 10, including Starmer’s then-chief of staff Morgan McSweeney, called him directly, and insisted he made his own choice to clear Mandelson’s appointment having “rigorously followed process.”
Robbins said that while he regretted that Mandelson was not vetted before his job was announced, he stood by his decision to grant the former envoy security clearance. He added: “I have no regrets about the work of my brilliant team and the judgment that we came to.”
Asked by committee chair Emily Thornberry if McSweeney phoned his predecessor Philip Barton to say “just fucking approve it,” Robbins said: “Philip’s handover to me has contributed to my strong sense that there was an atmosphere of pressure and a certain dismissiveness about this DV process … I don’t remember Philip using those words.”
Robbins said that by the time he arrived in the Foreign Office, Mandelson already had access to the building. “From time to time, for case-specific issues, he was being given access to higher-classification briefing,” he added.
Starmer told MPs Monday that Robbins’ behavior “beggars belief,” adding: “A deliberate decision was taken to withhold that material. This was not a lack of asking. This wasn’t an oversight. It was a decision taken not to share that information on repeated occasions.”