Fired former UK official says he felt political pressure to approve Mandelson as US ambassador
Apr 21, 2026, 1:17 AM | Updated: 5:32 pm
FILE - Olly Robbins walks on Whitehall in Westminster, London, Jan. 17, 2019. (Dominic Lipinski/PA via AP, File)
Credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS
(Dominic Lipinski/PA via AP, File)
LONDON (AP) — The ex-civil servant behind the decision to approve Peter Mandelson’s appointment as British ambassador to Washington says he felt political pressure to rush through the appointment despite security concerns.
Olly Robbins, former head of the Foreign Office, said those concerns did not relate to Mandelson’s relationship with the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. He declined to say when questioned by lawmakers what led the government’s vetting agency to flag Mandelson as a potential security risk.
Robbins said the vetting agency considered Mandelson a “borderline case” and was “leaning toward recommending against” giving him security clearance to be British ambassador to Washington.
The Foreign Office decided to clear him anyway. Robbins was fired by Prime Minister Keir Starmer last week over the decision.
Robbins told the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday that there was an “atmosphere of pressure” coming from Starmer’s office.
He said there was “a very, very strong expectation” that Mandelson “needed to be in post and in America as quickly as possible.”
Starmer is facing calls to resign over the revelation that Mandelson was given the crucial diplomatic post despite failing security checks.
Robbins said there was “a generally dismissive attitude” to the security vetting in January 2025, before Mandelson went to Washington.
The prime minister says he made the wrong judgment when he picked Jeffrey Epstein ’s friend Mandelson for the job. But he said he would have withdrawn the appointment if he’d known about the security vetting.
Starmer has placed blame squarely on Foreign Office officials, who he said failed to tell him about the security concerns and approved Mandelson’s appointment despite them.
He called it “frankly staggering” that officials didn’t tell him about the failed vetting, which took place in January 2025. Starmer says he only found out last week.
Starmer fired Mandelson in September, nine months into the job, when new details emerged about his friendship with Epstein, a convicted sex offender who died in prison in 2019.
