Sir Keir Starmer has been put in the clear over the Peter Mandelson vetting scandal after his former political aide took the blame for his appointment on another turbulent day in parliament.
With Labour set to use its majority to block a “sleaze” inquiry by the powerful Commons Privileges Committee into whether the prime minister misled parliament, Sir Keir appeared to be over the worst of a scandal, which has rocked the foundations of his premiership.
He received a huge boost in the morning when his former chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, took the fall for the appointment of Lord Mandelson as ambassador to the US.
Apologising to the victims of the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, a close friend of Lord Mandelson whose relationship with the disgraced peer ultimately led to his sacking, Mr McSweeney told the Foreign Affairs Select Committee that “the appointment of Mandelson as ambassador was a serious error of judgement”.
“I advised the prime minister in support of that appointment, and I was wrong to do so,” he added.
But despite the evidence from Mr McSweeney and former Foreign Office permanent secretary Sir Philip Barton to the committee, questions remain over Sir Keir’s judgement.
Several Labour MPs made it clear they would not support him in the Privileges Committee vote and questioned why he had not referred himself for investigation.
Clapham and Brixton MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy said: “If I was, I would be voting for the motion. Transparency is a cornerstone of our democracy. The best thing for the PM to do would be to simply refer himself on this matter and save us all the drama.”
South Shields MP Emma Lewell said she would defy Sir Keir and vote for him to face a grilling by the committee. She said: “The way today’s vote has been handled by the government smacks once again of being out of touch and disconnected from the public mood.”
Opening the debate, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch asked Labour MPs: “Do they still believe honesty and accountability matter when it is one of their own?”
The leader of the SNP in Westminster, Stephen Flynn, warned that Labour MPs “cannot outrun Peter Mandelson, they cannot outrun their own prime minister and his record.”
And Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey warned: “The prime minister called this motion a stunt, that is not why I put my name to it. But it’s funny though, because ‘stunt’ is exactly the same word Boris Johnson used about the motion the prime minister and I tabled four years ago, referring Boris Johnson to the privileges committee.”
While Labour ran short of MPs willing to speak in the debate, several were willing to speak up for the PM.
Andrew Lewin, Labour MP for Welwyn Hatfield, says “one more committee” is not the answer, as he believes the prime minister and government were not hiding but “putting everything in the sunlight”.
But Sir Keir was aided earlier when Mr McSweeney pinned the blame for the row firmly on Lord Mandelson, who he said had not been honest and would not have “come close” to the job if the allegations in the Epstein files had been known at the time.
Lord Mandelson is facing a police inquiry over claims he leaked sensitive government documents to the paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Mr McSweeney, who began his evidence session with MPs investigating the scandal by remembering Epstein’s victims, said it was “like a knife through my soul” when he realised Mandelson’s full links to the convicted sex offender, after he became ambassador.
Mr McSweeney, who denied Lord Mandelson was his hero despite his close relationship with the former peer, also said that the Labour grandee was the first to suggest his own name for the Washington job.
He revealed that the former ambassador was inside No 10 on the day of the last Cabinet reshuffle but denied Lord Mandelson’s “ideas” affected the outcome.
And he was forced to deny there was a “jobs for the boys” culture in No 10 after he admitted discussions about a separate ambassador role for Sir Keir’s then spin doctor Matthew Doyle, saying the PM wanted him “to be able to land on his feet” after losing his job.
He also denied telling the boss of the Foreign Office boss to “just f***ing approve” Lord Mandelson for the role.
Mr McSweeney denied wanting the ex-Labour minister to be granted security clearance “at all costs”. Before the appointment, he said, he believed Lord Mandelson had been the right man to deal with Donald Trump – in part because of the need to secure a post-Brexit UK-US trade deal.
“What I did do was make a recommendation based on my judgement that Mandelson’s experience, relationships and political skills could serve the national interest in Washington at an important moment. That judgement was a mistake,” he told MPs.
“What I did not do was oversee national security vetting, ask officials to ignore procedures, request that steps should be skipped, or communicate explicitly or implicitly that checks should be cleared at all costs.”
But he insisted he was not solely responsible for advising Sir Keir to pick Lord Mandelson and hit out at suggestions by some cabinet ministers that they had warned against the appointment.
“I know that a lot of people now say they told the prime minister they were against it at the time,” he said. “Everything I know about how the prime minister works is he will consult widely, he will take a lot of views on, and if everybody else was opposed to this appointment but me, he would not have made an appointment such as that.”
He also confirmed that the other person on the shortlist was George Osborne, the former Tory chancellor of the exchequer, hated by many within Labour as the architect of austerity.