‘I KNOW many Members across the House will find these facts incredible (loud jeers) and to that I can only say that they are right, it beggars belief’ (louder jeers), Labour Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer told Parliament yesterday afternoon.
Starmer ignored repeated calls to resign in a packed House of Commons as he made a statement in which he sought to justify his appointment of Lord Peter Mandelson as UK Ambassador to the USA.
Starmer opened: ‘At the heart of this, there was also a judgement that I made that was wrong. I take responsibility for that decision, and I apologise again to the victims of the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who were clearly failed by my decision.’
Following Starmer’s statement, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch told him his ‘reputation is at stake’.
Repeating Downing Street’s earlier comments that Starmer had ‘inadvertently misled’ Parliament, Badenoch pointed out that he had ‘chosen not to repeat’ that this afternoon.
She added that if he found out about the vetting issues last Tuesday, the ‘earliest opportunity’, as is bound by the ministerial code to correct the record, was during Prime Minister’s Questions last week.
Badenoch put a series of questions to Starmer, including whether he stands by a previous assertion made in opposition that if a prime minister misled the House, they should resign.
Labour chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, Emily Thornberry, said her committee had asked ‘the very questions which hecklers on the other side say should have been asked’.
Thornberry asked whether ‘for certain members of the PM’s team’ getting Mandelson the job was a priority that overrode everything else, and if security considerations were ‘very much second order’.
Starmer said that if he had been told about Mandelson’s failed security vetting, he would not have appointed him.
Sir Ed Davey, leader of the Liberal Democrats, said of Starmer: ‘He blames his officials… even on his own account, the prime minister appointed Peter Mandelson… even after he had been warned about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.’
Davey wanted to know why Starmer asked ‘so few questions personally about the vetting process himself’.
He also asked whether Starmer was given advice by former Cabinet Secretary Simon Case that ‘the necessary security clearances should be acquired before he confirmed his choice for US ambassador’, and whether he followed that advice, before demanding that Mandelson resign.