Starmer would have blocked Mandelson role over vetting failure, says Lammy | Keir Starmer

Keir Starmer would have blocked Peter Mandelson from serving as Britain’s ambassador to Washington if he had known he had failed his vetting, David Lammy has said, as he sought to back the prime minister amid the damaging fallout from the row.

In his first public statement about the inquiry, Lammy said it was “inexplicable” that former senior civil servant Oliver Robbins, who was forced to leave the Foreign Office this week, chose to keep Downing Street in the dark about the outcome.

Starmer has been under intense pressure since the Guardian revealed on Thursday that it had overruled the Foreign Office’s decision to refuse Mandelson’s security clearance. He will appear before MPs on Monday as he tries to limit the damage to his premiership.

Deputy Prime Minister Lammy said he was “shocked and surprised” when he first learned of what had happened last week.

But he insisted that neither he nor his advisers knew about or sought information about the review process or its results. Starmer and Yvette Cooper, the current foreign secretary, also said they were unaware until this week.

But Lammy admitted there was “some time pressure” on the State Department to confirm Mandelson was in office as Donald Trump re-entered the White House last January.

“There was a sense that Trump clearly won the election in November, that he was going to move into the White House, and it would be nice if we had an ambassador. There were some time pressures around at the time, as I recall.”

In an interview with the Guardian, Lammy said: “Knowing the Prime Minister as I do, I have absolutely no doubt that if he had known that Peter Mandelson had not passed scrutiny he would never, ever have appointed him as ambassador.

“The Prime Minister was not particularly close to Peter Mandelson. He had not worked with him in the past, as some of us have done. He was weighing up a decision, but I’m sure if he had known that he wouldn’t have been ambassador. So it’s inexplicable.”

While on a military flight from the Middle East, Lammy was called into the cockpit by the captain and told that Number 10 needed to speak to him over the radio urgently.

“This obviously felt dramatic, serious and unexpected,” he said. “This was the first time I’d heard of this.”

Asked whether he or his advisers had been briefed on or asked questions about Mandelson’s review process during their time at the State Department, he said: “No. And let me be absolutely clear, in the years that I have been in both this government and the last government, I have never had a formal conversation with me about the review or the details of the review, so I would remember if this issue was ever raised with me.”

Robbins received the review’s conclusion after Starmer announced Mandelson’s appointment, pointing to the reputational risk of sending him to Washington despite a separate due diligence process.

While allies said he was simply following the rules to continue scrutinizing ministers, some insiders suggested the senior civil servant was doing what he believed was expected of him at that stage. Others suggested that mitigation measures had already been implemented after the due diligence report.

Lammy, who is also justice minister and appointed Robbins to the post in January 2025, said he found him to be an “exceptional” civil servant. “I don’t know what happened in this situation. I was surprised and shocked by it. It’s only been a few weeks since I started working,” he added.

Meanwhile, the foreign affairs committee has published correspondence from foreign secretary Yvette Cooper to committee chair Emily Thornberry, who said: “I [the foreign secretary] I requested FCDO [Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office] Conducting a full review of all information the department has provided to your committee about the vetting process undertaken as part of Lord Mandelson’s appointment.”

Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey said on Saturday: “Keir Starmer needs to come clean and publish the initial due diligence report conducted on Peter Mandelson before his appointment.

“No more ministers hiding behind the process and dragging their feet, the public now deserves full transparency.”

Lammy suggested next month’s local elections would be tough for Labor even before the Mandelson row (polls predicted grim results across the country) and regretted that this was brought up again.

He said: “These feel like tough by-elections to me. I’ve knocked on a lot of doors around the country, particularly in London… There’s a continuing mood of cost-of-living pressures, anxiety and concerns about public services.”

“Local government elections are, to some extent, a referendum on concerns about public services. I think voters will convey their feelings to all political parties, but certainly to the ruling party, which is what you would expect.”

Asked whether they might get tougher as a result of the Mandelson scandal, Lammy said: “Obviously the effects of Peter Mandelson’s behavior and the decision to appoint him continued for months and months and months.

“I actually regret that this issue has come up again when most people are worried about oil prices, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and how the war in Iran will affect them.”