‘Knife through my soul’: McSweeney, Starmer and Whitehall war over Mandelson saga
Sir Keir Starmer’s former chief of staff Morgan McSweeney, who pushed for Lord Mandelson’s appointment as US ambassador, has said that further revelations over the disgraced peer’s links to Jeffrey Epstein were a “knife through my soul”.
In a blockbuster appearance before the Foreign Affairs Committee, McSweeney apologised for urging the Prime Minister to appoint Mandelson as ambassador in Washington DC on the basis that he would help secure a trade deal with the Trump administration.
He said he trusted Mandelson when he said he did not have a “close friendship” with Epstein and added he wished that he had asked an ethics team to ask the former Labour veteran further questions over his personal relationships.
But McSweeney, who resigned over the Mandelson affair in mid-February, insisted that he did not tell officials in the Foreign Office to clear the former ambassador “at all costs”.
The hearing in parliament with McSweeney followed a separate session with the former permanent secretary at the Foreign Office, Sir Philip Barton, who preceded Sir Olly Robbins as the department’s top civil servant. The Mandelson appointment process took place during a transition between the two officials’ position at the top of the diplomatic service.
Last week, another Cabinet Office official explained how she found out about risks flagged in Mandelson’s security vetting more than a year after his appointment and months after his sacking over links to Epstein.
The parliamentary hearings have exposed some of the failings across Whitehall but also brought a full-throated conflict between ministers and officials into public view, adding to questions over Starmer’s leadership and the effectiveness of government operations.
They will also deepen questions over Mandelson’s vetting and government pressure, with Barton refusing to comment on whether Starmer was right to tell parliament that “due process” was followed in the appointment.
McSweeney’s public appearance
McSweeney opened his session by apologising to Epstein’s victims, adding he was “wrong” to advise the Prime Minister on the appointment. However, McSweeney said Starmer would have taken advice from multiple members of the government from across his team and Whitehall.
McSweeney said: “As I said in my resignation statement, I resigned because I believe responsibility should rest with those who make serious mistakes. Accountability in public life cannot apply only when it is convenient. The Prime Minister relied on my advice, and I got it wrong.
“It is also important, however, to distinguish between what I did and what I did not do.
“What I did do was make a recommendation based on my judgment that Mandelson’s experience, relationships and political skills could serve the national interest in Washington at an important moment. That judgment was a mistake.
He added: “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. I would never have considered that acceptable.”
He also said seeing pictures and emails that exposed the closeness of Mandelson’s relationship with Epstein after his conviction in 2008 was “like a knife through my soul”.
McSweeney also said he did not swear at officials over the process after MPs claimed that a Sky News journalist had reported he had.
Barton said earlier he did not recall any instances where McSweeney had sworn at him.
The ex-Downing Street operator took aim at rumours in Westminster for being “corrosive” and added that there was a “real difference between asking people to act at pace and asking people to lower standards”.
“We never did that. We never asked people to skip steps.”
Jaw-dropper revelations
In his session, McSweeney also revealed that former Tory Chancellor George Osborne was on a final two-man shortlist for the ambassadorial role and that others had advised Starmer to make a political appointment to the post in the US.
He also revealed that Jonathan Powell was appointed as national security adviser before receiving security clearance and Mandelson was in Downing Street on the day of the reshuffle last year when Angela Rayner resigned as deputy prime minister and housing secretary.
The former Labour electoral mastermind also said he left the process to the Foreign Office and admitted it would have been a “political embarrassment” if it was found that Mandelson failed security vetting though Starmer would have “withdrawn the ambassadorship”.
“The Prime Minister did not have enough information because Mandelson did not share the necessary information with him. He had ample opportunity to do so and did not”
McSweeney also said former foreign secretary David Lammy was not told about a possible appointment for Lord Matthew Doyle after he left his position as Number 10 director of communications because of “delicate HR issues”.
“If someone leaves your job, you don’t want everyone to know about it.”
Ex- Foreign Office mandarin adds twist to Mandelson saga
Barton appeared before MPs shortly before McSweeney.
During his session, he said he was not involved in the decision-making for Mandelson’s appointment.
He also said the Cabinet Office suggested Mandelson did not need security vetting due to his position in the House of Lords, which he thought was “odd”.
“I knew very well to do the job effectively, you have to be party to some of the deepest secrets that the UK Government holds.
“But I also recognise that the situation was unusual, and I therefore asked for advice, although it was pretty clear in my mind from the FCDO (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) security team. They came back to me after discussions with the Cabinet Office, and said that their advice was that he should have DV (developed vetting), and I absolutely agreed with that.”
He said it would have been “very odd” to stop Mandelson from seeing highly classified documents before completing full vetting as he moved in to Washington DC.
But in awkward comments for Starmer and his team, he added that he was told to “get on” with the appointment.
“There was no space for dialogue,” Barton told MPs.
“I had a concern that a man who demonstrably from the public record at the time – and it was clearly much bigger than we all knew – had a link to Epstein, and that Epstein through both the presidential election campaign in the US and more generally in US politics, had been and was a controversial figure, and I was worried that this could become a problem in future.”
“That is a very candid account of probably what I was thinking at the time, but there was no space or avenue or mechanism for me to put that on the table.
“A decision had been taken. It was a political decision.”
When asked about whether due process had been followed, the ex-Foreign Office chief replied: “I’m going to dodge.”