Prime Minister Keir Starmer fired the top civil servant in Britain’s Foreign Office late Thursday night following accusations that his department had concealed from ministers the fact that Peter Mandelson, the former ambassador to the United States, had failed security vetting checks before he was appointed last year.
Mr. Mandelson served as ambassador until September, when Mr. Starmer fired him amid revelations about his close relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender. The ensuing scandal has rocked the prime minister’s government for months.
Olly Robbins, the senior nonpartisan official in the Foreign Office, was forced out on Thursday after Mr. Starmer and Yvette Cooper, the foreign secretary, lost confidence in him, according to an official familiar with the decision.
The move came hours after Mr. Starmer’s office had confirmed a report, first published by the British newspaper The Guardian, that Mr. Mandelson had failed the top-secret security vetting process but had been granted clearances by the Foreign Office anyway. In a statement, Mr. Starmer’s spokesman said the prime minister had been unaware of that until this week.
Firing Mr. Robbins is unlikely to quell the calls from Mr. Starmer’s political opponents for the prime minister to step down. On Thursday night, the leaders of several leading political parties called for Mr. Starmer to resign, accusing him of misleading the public and Parliament by suggesting that Mr. Mandelson had passed vetting.
Darren Jones, one of Mr. Starmer’s senior ministers, told the BBC on Friday morning that the prime minister was not considering resigning because he had been kept in the dark by officials at the Foreign Office.
“The prime minister was right when he told the House that due process had been followed because it had,” Mr. Jones said, referring to the House of Commons. “But the fact that that process did not require officials to tell the foreign secretary or the prime minister that they ignored the advice of security vetting officials is totally unacceptable.”
Mr. Jones said that Mr. Starmer would address Parliament directly about the issue on Monday and that he himself had initiated a full review of the vetting process. Mr. Jones also said he had suspended all government offices’ ability to overrule recommendations from security vetting teams.
Michael D. Shear is the chief U.K. correspondent for The New York Times, covering British politics and culture and diplomacy around the world.
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