Downing Street is facing explosive claims that Sir Keir Starmer knew about the security concerns surrounding Lord Mandelson long before his appointment as US ambassador — and chose to proceed anyway.
The Express understands senior Whitehall figures said the Prime Minister had been briefed on the risks that would ultimately lead vetting officials to block Mandelson's clearance, undermining Sir Keir's insistence that he was kept in the dark throughout.
The concerns at the heart of the vetting failure related to Mandelson's connections to Russia and China, which prompted UK Security Vetting officials to formally recommend against approving him. That advice was later set aside by Sir Oliver Robbins, then the most senior civil servant at the Foreign Office, whom Sir Keir dismissed last week.
"The reality is that Starmer had already been warned about the major risks and he had waved them away," one senior Whitehall source told reporters.
Sir Keir is due before the Commons on Monday, where he is expected to characterise his ignorance of the formal vetting failure as "unforgivable." But according to the Telegraph Whitehall sources say the security picture had already been drawn to his attention — leaving the Prime Minister open to accusations that his outrage is politically convenient rather than genuine.
Ministers have maintained that Sir Keir would have blocked the appointment had the full picture been put to him. The sources allegedly dispute that account.
A bitter public confrontation between Downing Street and Sir Oliver is now under way. On Saturday, No 10 dismissed his contention that he was legally unable to disclose the vetting failure to ministers, calling the claim baseless. Sir Oliver is due before the foreign affairs select committee on Tuesday, where he intends to argue that the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act of 2010 tied his hands.
Downing Street rejected that interpretation ahead of Monday's Commons appearance, making clear it believed Sir Oliver could and should have raised the matter with ministers through other means.
Sir Oliver is also understood to be preparing to argue that he felt justified in overriding the vetting recommendation because the concerns about Mandelson had effectively already been factored into the decision at the highest level. He has previously told MPs the situation on his desk made it evident the Prime Minister had personally determined he wanted Mandelson in the role.
His allies have condemned his removal as a cynical attempt to deflect blame from ministers. Sir Oliver is now weighing legal action and is believed to be prepared to challenge the decision before an employment tribunal.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch put Sir Keir on notice on Sunday evening, writing to demand full transparency over the scandal and warning him she would accept nothing less than complete candour when he appears before MPs. She urged him to "give us the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth."
Months before the vetting process formally concluded, the Cabinet Office had already compiled a report on Mandelson for the Prime Minister's attention. The document raised questions about his financial dealings in China and recorded concern about what it described as his "flowery account" of an encounter with President Xi Jinping.
It also drew attention to his history with Russian conglomerate Sistema, on whose board he had served as a non-executive director. The firm's chairman had close ties to Vladimir Putin and had previously served as a Russian prime minister. Mandelson remained on the board long after Putin seized Crimea — a detail the report did not overlook.
