The Conservatives have urged Sir Keir Starmer to publish all concerns raised by the security services about the appointment of sacked US ambassador Peter Mandelson.
Shadow cabinet office minister Alex Burghart said his party would push for a vote in parliament demanding the government reveal what issues the security services had in relation to Lord Mandelson’s relationship with the disgraced sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein.
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It comes after Sky News’ deputy political editor Sam Coates revealed that Number 10 appointed Lord Mandelson to the Washington role despite the security services’ reservations about the move.
Mr Burghart said material from the security services is not usually made public, but that a substantial amount of information was already in the public domain.
He told Sky News Breakfast: “What we’re going to do is we’re going to try and bring a vote in parliament to say that the government has to publish this information.
“It will then be up to Labour MPs to decide whether they want to vote to protect Peter Mandelson and the prime minister or make the information available.”
Mr Burghart said he had spoken to Labour MPs who were “incredibly unhappy about the prime minister’s handling of this”, and that it would be “very interesting to see whether they want to be on the side of transparency”.
The Liberal Democrats have called for Parliament to be given a role in vetting the next US ambassador.
“To avoid further national embarrassment for our country on the international stage, the Foreign Affairs Committee must now have a role in scrutinising Mandelson’s successor before they are appointed,” foreign affairs spokesperson Calum Miller said.
Labour MP Chris Hinchcliff posted on X that the former US ambassador should also be removed from the House of Lords.
Nigel Farage said Sir Keir’s decision to appoint Lord Mandelson as UK ambassador to the US was a “serious misjudgement” by the PM.
“We don’t yet know what the intelligence briefings would have said, but it looks as though Morgan McSweeney, the prime minister’s right-hand man, and the prime minister, ignored the warnings, carried on,” he said.
“He was then reluctant to get rid of Mandelson, and he’s now left himself in a very vulnerable position with the rest of the parliamentary Labour Party.
“It is about the prime minister’s judgement, but it is also about the role that Morgan McSweeney plays in this government.”
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The timing of the sacking comes ahead of Donald Trump’s state visit next week, with the US president facing questions over his own ties with Epstein.
The prime minister sacked Lord Mandelson on Thursday after new emails revealed the Labour grandee sent messages of support to Epstein even as he faced jail for sex offences in 2008.
In one particular message, Lord Mandelson had suggested that Epstein’s first conviction was wrongful and should be challenged, Foreign Office minister Stephen Doughty told MPs.
The Foreign Office said the emails showed “the depth and extent of Peter Mandelson’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein is materially different from that known at the time of his appointment”.
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Downing Street has defended the extensive vetting process which senior civil servants go through in order to get jobs, which has raised questions about whether or not they missed something or Number 10 ignored their advice.
The prime minister’s official spokesman also said yesterday that Number 10 “was not involved in the security vetting process”.
“This is managed at departmental level by the agency responsible, and any suggestion that Number 10 was involved is untrue,” he told reporters.
Asked repeatedly if any concerns were flagged to Downing Street by the agencies that conducted the vetting of Lord Mandelson, he did not dismiss the assertion, repeating that Number 10 did not conduct the vetting.
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Speaking to Sky News this morning, Scotland Secretary Douglas Alexander said his reaction to the publication of the emails was one of “incredulity and revulsion”.
He said he was “not here to defend” Lord Mandelson but said the prime minister “dismissed” the ambassador when he became aware of them.
The cabinet minister said Lord Mandelson was appointed on “judgement – a judgement that, given the depth of his experience as a former trade commissioner for the European Union, his long experience in politics and his policy and doing politics at the highest international levels, he could do a job for the United Kingdom”.
“We knew this was an unconventional presidential administration and that was the basis on which there was a judgement that we needed an unconventional ambassador,” he said.
Mr Alexander added: “If what has emerged now had been known at the time, there is no doubt he would not have been appointed.”
