LONDON: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer insisted Wednesday (Apr 22) he wouldn’t resign, claiming allegations of misleading MPs over his appointment of a celebration loyalist as UK envoy to Washington had been “put to mattress”.
Starmer’s remarks in parliament got here because the beleaguered premier confronted contemporary calls to step down over his admitted error of judgement in appointing veteran former politician Peter Mandelson to the coveted publish.
The premier spoke to lawmakers a day after the overseas ministry’s most senior official, Olly Robbins, gave proof to a parliamentary committee having been fired by Starmer over the affair final week.
Starmer has accused Robbins of failing to inform him about issues that emerged throughout Mandelson’s safety clearance.
He has repeatedly insisted that regardless of beforehand stating that “all due course of” had been adopted he wouldn’t have allowed the appointment to proceed if he had identified that unbiased vetting officers had really useful safety clearance be denied.
Starmer instructed MPs that Robbins clearly answered “no” when requested if he had shared the advice “with me, quantity 10 or another ministers”.
“That places to mattress all of the allegations levelled at me … in relation to dishonesty,” he stated, including every week in the past opposition politicians “had been all saying that it should have been shared with me … It was not.”
Mandelson was named to the highest diplomatic publish in December 2024, simply weeks earlier than US President Donald Trump was inaugurated the next month. He took up the job in February 2025.
The precise nature of the dangers raised by vetting officers has not been made public.
Robbins has stated that they didn’t relate to Mandelson’s relationship with late US intercourse offender Jeffrey Epstein.
