Ex-Foreign Office boss Olly Robbins launches legal challenge after being fired by Starmer over Mandelson scandal
The former Foreign Office official sacked by Sir Keir Starmer over the Peter Mandelson scandal has launched a legal challenge.
Sir Olly Robbins was accused by the prime minister of not telling him that Lord Mandelson had not been vetted to become Britain’s ambassador to the US.
In a statement on Monday, his union confirmed that it had requested a Judicial Review into his removal as permanent undersecretary of the FCDO.
Sir Olly said: “I take this action reluctantly. It would be unnecessary if the Prime Minister had apologized for his mistake and made amends for the distress and cost it has caused me and my family.
“Instead, I must now ask the Courts to rule that the prime minister’s decisions are unlawful and unreasonable and to annul them.”
In his statement to the court, Sir Olly argued that “there was no fair procedure” in his dismissal and that the reasons given for his dismissal were “unreasonable”.
He also claimed that the prime minister “does not have the legal authority to dismiss the head of the diplomatic service”.
The FDA union called on Sir Keir to accept that sacking Sir Olly was a mistake, claiming the dismissal was “based on a serious misunderstanding of how the National Security Review (NSV) system works and a hasty reaction to a media story”.
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