Top UK Official Says He Felt Pressure to Approve Mandelson Role

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(Bloomberg) — The top UK bureaucrat who granted clearance for Peter Mandelson to take up the role as US ambassador against the recommendation of security officials said he felt pressure from Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office to rubber-stamp an appointment that had already been announced.

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Oliver Robbins, a 51-year-old career civil servant who was the most senior official in the Foreign Office until he was fired last week by Starmer, told a parliamentary committee that on Tuesday that the prime minister’s office had a “dismissive approach” to Mandelson’s vetting. 

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No. 10 created an “atmosphere of pressure” for the appointment to proceed, Robbins said in a letter to Parliament’s cross-party Foreign Affairs Select Committee before his appearance.

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The pound extended a drop as Robbins spoke, falling as much as 0.4% to $1.3483. Gilts also fell, with the 10-year yield rising four basis points to 4.87%.

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Robbins gave evidence a day after Starmer faced his own showdown in the House of Commons over the circumstances surrounding the Mandelson appointment, a call which is threatening his premiership.

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“My office was under constant pressure,” Robbins said, adding there was “never any interest” from Starmer’s private office in No. 10 in the results of the vetting process.

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Starmer has sought to blame Robbins for the furor, arguing in Parliament on Monday that the official kept the negative recommendation by security officials from him and his team in 10 Downing Street.

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Facing 2 1/2 hours of questions in the crowded Commons chamber on Monday, the prime minister insisted that neither he, nor any minister nor any member of his office had been informed that Mandelson’s appointment was opposed by security-vetting officials. That included the then-head of the civil service, Chris Wormald. 

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Starmer called the decision by Robbins not to share the recommendation by the UK Security Vetting agency “unforgivable.”

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“There is no law that stops civil servants sensibly flagging UKSV recommendations while protecting detailed sensitive vetting information,” Starmer told the Commons. “It beggars belief that throughout the whole time-line of events, officials in the Foreign Office saw fit to withhold this information from the most senior ministers.”

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In a sign of the concerns in Starmer’s cabinet about his handling of the row, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband told Sky News on Tuesday morning that when Mandelson was appointed as US envoy he feared “it could blow up and go wrong,” noting he himself had “steered well clear” of the controversial Labour figure in his own political career. 

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Miliband said he didn’t think Starmer should lose his job, adding: “Prime ministers make errors, prime ministers are fallible, prime ministers are human.”

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—With assistance from Fran Wang.

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