STEPHEN Flynn has called for a confidence vote on Keir Starmer’s premiership after bombshell testimony from a former top official reopened the Peter Mandelson scandal.
The SNP’s Westminster leader said that Labour MPs should “put their money where their mouth is” and accept the growing calls for the Prime Minister to go.
His comments came during an emergency debate on Starmer’s handling of the Mandelson scandal, after it emerged that the disgraced politician had been posted to Washington as the British ambassador despite failing security vetting.
Intervening on Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch during her opening to the debate, Flynn said: “Does she not believe that the sorry souls opposite us should have to put their money where their mouth is, and that there should be a vote of no confidence in this Prime Minister in due course?”
Badenoch replied: “I think he is right, because I don’t believe the Prime Minister has the intention of doing the honourable thing himself, even though that’s the standard to which he held everyone else.
“The decision about whether he will ultimately take responsibility for his actions is now up to Labour MPs. We heard many powerful statements from that side of the House yesterday.
“Labour MPs know that the Prime Minister has let the country down, he’s let Parliament down, and he’s also let the Labour Party down. It is clear to everyone, except the Prime Minister himself, that he has failed on his own terms.
“It is clear to the public that he is failing at the job, it is clear to civil servants that he is throwing them under the bus, and it is clear to members across this House that he is not fit to lead.”
READ MORE: Keir Starmer's team bid for SECOND paedo-linked ally to get top ambassador role
She accused Starmer of having “put the country’s national security at risk” because of the security concerns about Mandelson’s appointment, which included his links with Russia and China .
Badenoch added: “He must take responsibility. It is time for him to go.”
The Conservative leader also raised the prospect of double standards from Starmer, as she repeated comments he had made as opposition leader to Boris Johnson in 2022.
Starmer then said Johnson should resign if he had misled the house, even inadvertently.
Badenoch said: “Either he is a man of his word, or he thinks there is one rule for him and another for everyone else.”
She added it was “inconceivable” that nobody in Number 10 had known Mandelson had failed his vetting, and “laughable” that the Prime Minister was a victim of others not following due process.
The Tory leader said: “The Prime Minister … placed top secret intelligence in the hands of a man he knew to be a national security risk.
“He did so before the official security vetting, not just knowingly, but deliberately, and to an extent that left a senior civil servant, with a distinguished career, under the clear and obvious impression that the vetting must return only one possible outcome: that Peter Mandelson was appointed.”
Speaking at the Scottish Trades Union Congress meeting in Dundee, First Minister John Swinney called on the Prime Minister to resign.
Saying that throughout the Mandelson affair "the driving force was from No 10 Downing Street to get Peter Mandelson installed as the ambassador to the US as quickly as possible with as little interruption as possible", Swinney added: "That’s on Keir Starmer.
"So I think it’s terrible the way that Olly Robbins has been treated, I think it’s appalling the way the Prime Minister has acted over this whole thing, I think he’s treated Olly Robbins really badly.
"But ultimately, this comes down to the flawed judgment of the Prime Minister and for that, Keir Starmer should resign."
READ MORE: Scottish Labour ask SNP to take down paid advert on 'Anas Sarwar's Reform deal'
Meanwhile, LibDem leader Ed Davey said the Prime Minister had appointed Mandelson as ambassador because he wanted to “appease” Donald Trump, a decision he branded the “original sin”.
Davey also said the Prime Minister had shown “catastrophically bad judgment” for considering former Labour head of communications Matthew Doyle for an ambassador role .
He told the Commons: “This all comes back to the way the Prime Minister decided to approach his relationship with the President when he came back to office last year.
“Our party urged the Prime Minister to stand up to Trump, to stand together with our allies, to approach him from a position of strength, not weakness. But he chose the opposite course.”
He added: “That is the original sin that has landed the Prime Minister and his Government in the mess they are in today. And has it worked? Absolutely not.”
Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister Darren Jones, responding for the Government, denied accusations that Downing Street considered developed vetting unnecessary for Mandelson and that pressure was put on the Foreign Office to approve the appointment.
He said: “There is suggestion that Number 10 applied pressure on officials at the Foreign Office in relation to the security vetting process.
“It was confirmed in testimony today before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee that no such pressure was applied beyond asking for the process to be completed as quickly as possible, and by Sir Olly Robbins that no personal contact was made of him by a telephone or message.”
Share