Lammy backs Starmer amid Mandelson appointment vetting scandal

David Lammy stepped in to defend Keir Starmer on Saturday as the Peter Mandelson appointment scandal turned from an embarrassing personnel failure into a test of whether Labour’s top team can trust its own processes.

At the centre of the dispute is Mandelson’s brief return as Britain’s ambassador to the United States, a post he lost in September 2025 after new U.S. congressional documents intensified scrutiny of his ties to Jeffrey Epstein. The latest uproar has focused on the government’s handling of his vetting. Officials said Starmer was only told on Tuesday, April 15, 2026, that Mandelson had failed security checks, even though the adverse outcome had been reached in late January 2025 after a highly confidential background review.

Lammy, now deputy prime minister and justice secretary, but foreign secretary when Mandelson was chosen, told The Guardian it was “inexplicable” that Starmer had not been told about the initial vetting recommendation. He said he had “absolutely no doubt” that Starmer would never have appointed Mandelson had he known the check had been failed. His intervention mattered because it was not just a defence from a colleague. It was a cabinet-level attempt to steady the leadership while questions mounted over who knew what, when they knew it, and why the warning did not reach the prime minister sooner.

Starmer said on Friday, April 17, that it was “staggering” and “unforgivable” that he had not been informed earlier, and he promised to give Parliament a full account on Monday, April 20. Downing Street has said Foreign Office officials overruled the vetting recommendation without Starmer’s knowledge, while reports have said at least two senior civil servants knew weeks earlier that Mandelson had failed security vetting but withheld the information until legal checks were completed. The Foreign Office’s most senior civil servant, Sir Olly Robbins, was sacked on Thursday, April 17, as the pressure intensified.

The affair has now spilled beyond one appointment. Kemi Badenoch accused Starmer of misleading Parliament. Ed Davey called it a “catastrophic error of judgment.” Nigel Farage said Starmer had used Robbins as a “sacrificial lamb.” Former foreign secretary James Cleverly also said it was “inconceivable” that Starmer and Lammy were not told about the failed vetting.

For Starmer, the danger is not only the Mandelson fallout but the signal it sends about discipline inside government. If senior officials can override a sensitive appointment, keep ministers at arm’s length, and leave the prime minister exposed, the argument goes, then the problem is deeper than one damaged envoy. It is a test of trust at the top of government, and one that Labour will have to answer in Parliament, and to the country, in full.