Starmer facing almighty clash as critics look to finish him off

"Absolutely furious", "unforgivable" and "completely unacceptable". Sir Keir Starmer is normally not one to show emotion, but he was near apoplectic on Friday as he insisted he was not told Peter Mandelson's security vetting had failed.

He insisted, repeatedly, that neither he nor other ministers had been informed about the vetting process and said he would present the full facts to parliament on Monday amid mounting calls for him to resign.

Kemi Badenoch, the leader of the opposition, has accused the PM of lying to save his job.

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The stage is then set for an almighty clash - when the prime minister comes to parliament to persuade doubting MPs that he really was kept in the dark and he did not mislead parliament - as his opponents look to finish him off.

Key to Sir Keir's defence on Monday is that he wasn't made aware of the details of Mandelson's vetting.

The central claim from No 10, repeated by the PM's chief secretary Darren Jones on Friday morning, is that Starmer was only made aware on Tuesday night that Lord Mandelson had been granted security clearance against the recommendation of UK security vetting.

The Foreign Office says Sir Olly Robbins has been sacked as No 10 lays blame at that department's door.

I was told the PM had been asking Whitehall questions about vetting for months, given he was being asked to give statements to parliament and this information was not shared.

What this suggests is the Foreign Office withheld this information from the PM, which I find simply astonishing and shocking.

Overnight, I've spoken to a couple of former senior civil servants who have told me they find it impossible to believe Sir Olly would not have flagged this information to the PM and taken the decision to override vetting without consulting or informing any minister.

One former senior mandarin, casting around for a possible explanation, told me "failing" security vetting comes in different grades: "If it's complicated vetting, and the subject lives overseas, it might be that security services can't give a bright green light, but they can come and do the job but can't see top level papers, so the system can bend a bit."

But this figure was equally clear that if Mandelson failed vetting, then the explanation from government - that neither the PM nor his advisers, or it emerges the foreign secretary, were told - "makes no sense".

"The very first thing a permanent secretary would do is share that with their political masters," said a former civil servant. Another told me last night as Sir Olly was sacked that it was "awful treatment of a very good public servant".

We are yet to hear from Sir Olly. Chair of the foreign affairs select committee, Dame Emily Thornberry, has asked for the former permanent secretary of the Foreign Office to appear before her committee on Tuesday.

The key question for Starmer now is if he misled the House of Commons and is in contempt of parliament.

The defence is clearly going to be that he did not knowingly mislead parliament.

Parliament has to rely on what the PM and ministers say because it doesn't have independent investigation powers.

Any debate in the Commons has to be on the facts as they are told to MPs. If parliament is not told the truth, it cannot do its job, which is why the matter of misleading the Commons is fundamental to how our system operates.

The PM will on Monday now have to come to the Commons and then correct whatever he has told MPs about the process of Mandelson's appointment.

I'm told by one expert in these matters that if the PM has only just found out - as No 10 is saying - and is now establishing the facts, then from a contempt position, he will be able to come and correct the record.

But there are obvious questions too as to why the PM, if he was told on Tuesday evening, didn't make some sort of statement to MPs earlier:

I suspect No 10 will argue it wanted to understand what exactly went on before the PM addressed the Commons.

It also seems the defence No 10 is building is around a failure of the appointment processes.

Mr Jones told Sky News this morning it was "a failing of the state".

He added: "It is a security failing. It is utterly unacceptable, not just in the individual case of Peter Mandelson... but the very fact that there were processes in place that allow for that to happen in the first place".

But the government also appears to be saying this was a failure of individuals not to flag questions around vetting. And the obvious thing to be asking too is that why, if the government has been trawling through all the Mandelson evidence for weeks since early February, this massive vetting issue wasn't raised or found out until Tuesday.

Did Sir Olly and mandarins in the Foreign Office not check this until this week? I don't need to tell you how bad that looks for No 10 and the wider government operation.

Sir Keir might end up looking incompetent and not across what his government is doing. It could be very embarrassing and humiliating for the PM.

But critical will be whether he can defend against the accusations he knowingly misled MPs.

As one parliamentarian puts to me: "Incompetent and gullible is not contempt, although it will be judged."

(c) Sky News 2026: Starmer facing almighty clash as critics look to finish him off