Why The Independent’s evidence from last September is a problem for Starmer

While making his case in the House of Commons, Keir Starmer was asked the following questions several times by MPs, including Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch: Independent’s On September 12 last year, front page news that Peter Mandelson had failed his vetting.

Even more damaging are the Whatsapp messages this publication sent to the then Downing Street director of communications, Tim Allan, raising the issue on September 11.

This has been described by some public servants and senior politicians as a “smoking gun” in the whole scandal, as it contradicts the prime minister’s own assessment.

Sir Keir claimed he, his ministers and Downing Street only learned of the failure in the security investigation last week. However, this claim has been cast into doubt because Independent He had briefed Downing Street’s top communications official months ago.

In addition, serious questions are raised about what the prime minister was told by his then communications director in September.

Under normal circumstances, these issues are brought to the agenda through the system, leading to an investigation of the truth. Most importantly, these were raised with the prime minister and should have been seen as a red flag.

However, it seems that nothing happened and the warnings were ignored.

This is no small thing. Lord Mandelson served as Britain’s ambassador to Washington for many months.

He was the most important British diplomat in the United States at a time when Britain was struggling with a difficult president in the White House.

And as ambassador, he would be part of a vast amount of information, some of it designed only for those who had passed the highest level of security vetting.

When the Prime Minister fired him last September, he accused Mandelson of lying to his officials in the process and said he fired him when the full extent of his relationship with pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein was revealed.

And then, more importantly, in February Sir Keir told reporters: “The vetting that has been carried out independently by the security services, which is a lot of hard work that has cleared him for this role. You should review that before you take on the role. Clearly both the due diligence and the vetting need to be reviewed again.”

But this happened months later. Independent We reported the malfunction to Number 10.

On Monday the Prime Minister insisted he should have been told last year that his former man in Washington had failed a security check. But of course Downing Street was told. With Independent.

Last week Sir Keir said he was “furious” when he found out and it was unacceptable not to be told.

Within hours he had fired the State Department’s most senior civil servant, Olly Robbins. Sir Keir made this very clear because Mr Robbins was aware of the recommendation not to grant Mandelson security clearance and had not informed the prime minister.

But Sir Keir still faces an important question; This question was summed up by the mother of the House, Diane Abbott, a long-serving Labor MP who has now been suspended from the party and is serving as an independent MP.

He cornered him in the House of Commons and asked: “That’s something to say because (Starmer) insists on saying no one told me, no one told me anything, no one told me. The question is, why didn’t the prime minister ask?”