Strain mounts on embattled PM after he dismissed prime civil servant over newest twist in Mandelson scandal
Olly Robbins has been fired as head of the UK’s International, Commonwealth and Improvement Workplace (Picture: Getty)
Sir Keir Starmer faces rising calls to resign after it emerged that Lord Peter Mandelson was allowed to develop into ambassador to the US regardless of not passing safety vetting. Opponents of the Prime Minister have accused him of deceptive Parliament after he repeatedly instructed MPs that “due course of” had been adopted within the peer’s safety clearance.
But after reviews that Lord Mandelson failed his vetting, No 10 has blamed civil servants. Sir Olly Robbins, boss of the International, Commonwealth and Improvement Workplace (FCDO), was sacked after he was accused of failing to inform the Prime Minister in regards to the end result of the vetting.
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Tory social gathering chief Kemi Badenoch has demanded that Sir Keir resign. On Monday, she instructed ITV’s Good Morning Britain: “Any individual who was a nationwide safety danger – and this had been flagged – was put into probably the most senior and delicate diplomatic put up, the place all types of knowledge, intelligence, which I’d not have seen as a secretary of state, would have come throughout his desk. A nationwide safety subject.
“And what I discover actually surprising is how so many individuals’s careers are being ended over this, however the Prime Minister just isn’t taking duty. He’s throwing all people underneath a bus.”
Sir Olly is reportedly in search of authorized recommendation forward of an look earlier than MPs on the International Affairs Committee on Tuesday. Sir Keir will ship his model of occasions in an announcement to the Home of Commons on Monday.
However was the Prime Minister proper to sack Olly Robbins? We give Categorical readers an opportunity to have their say beneath.
Sir Olly was made the everlasting under-secretary of the FCDO in January 2025.
He was additionally the pinnacle of the UK’s Diplomatic Service and the highest coverage adviser to the International Secretary.
He served because the beforehand everlasting secretary of the Division for Exiting the European Union in 2016, and former PM Theresa Might’s Europe adviser from 2017-19, overseeing Brexit negotiations.
Earlier, he served as principal personal secretary for former PMs Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
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