British Prime Minister Keir Starmer faces two potentially damaging moments in Parliament on Tuesday as the fallout from his appointment of Peter Mandelson as Washington ambassador continues to widen.
First, Morgan McSweeney, Starmer's former chief of staff, is due to testify before the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee about how Mandelson was given the ambassadorship despite failing government security checks. Then the full House will debate a demand by the opposition Conservative Party to refer Starmer to Parliament's Privileges Committee, which has the power to suspend lawmakers found to have misled the chamber.
Mandelson, a veteran Labour politician and a friend of the late Jeffrey Epstein, was appointed by Starmer to serve as the UK's ambassador in Washington when Trump began his second term. Starmer fired him in September after new details emerged about his ties to Epstein, a convicted sex offender who died in prison in 2019. In February, police opened a separate investigation into Mandelson over allegations he passed sensitive government information to Epstein during his time as a government minister in 2009.
McSweeney, who resigned in February saying he took personal responsibility for recommending Mandelson for the post, is expected to face questions about claims by Olly Robbins, a former top Foreign Office civil servant. Robbins alleged that Starmer's staff pressured officials to rush Mandelson's security confirmation so he could be in place at the start of Trump's term. Starmer has denied that anyone in his office applied pressure to the civil service.
Starmer then fired Robbins earlier this month after it emerged that Mandelson had been approved for the role against the explicit recommendation of the government's own security vetting agency. Starmer called it "staggering" that Foreign Office officials had not informed him of those concerns at the time.
The Conservative motion in the full House centers on whether Starmer gave accurate explanations to Parliament about how the appointment unfolded. It is unclear whether enough Labour lawmakers will vote with the opposition to actually send the matter to the Privileges Committee, but the debate itself adds to a run of difficult weeks for the prime minister.
Starmer led the Labour Party to a landslide election victory in July 2024, but critics say the Mandelson episode reflects broader problems with his judgment in government. A fresh political test awaits on May 7, when local and regional elections will give voters a first significant opportunity to pass a midterm verdict on his administration.
