Ex-Foreign Office chief says Mandelson’s appointment raised more red flags than any other he oversaw - UK politics live

There weren’t any bombshell surprises in Philip Barton’s evidence to MPs. It was not quite up there with Olly Robbins evidence, which contained some genuine surprises. But, if Robbins scored 8/10 on the damage to the PM index, then this evidence was at least a 6/10. It was not at all helpful. For at least three reasons.

First, Barton said quite a lot that strongly backed up the impression given by Robbins that this was a bad appointment pushed through with unseemly haste. Barton’s comments about knowing that the Mandelson’s Epstein links would be difficult, and never having encountered such a red flag-heavy appointment, were striking. Barton also made new points that in effect showed No 10 did not care about the vetting. At one stage he said this to describe Downing Street’s approach to vetting.

double quotation markI wouldn’t use the word dismissive, the word I would use is uninterested. I think people wanted to know that all the practical steps required for Mandelson to arrive in Washington by or around the inauguration date, needed to be completed at pace.

And this is what he said about what would happen if Mandelson failed vetting.

double quotation markIt would have been a crisis if we got to the point where [Mandelson failed vetting]. That would have been a crisis, self-evidently, a publicly announced political appointment as the next ambassador to Washington, not being able to go. That would have been a big problem.

Starmer claims that, if he had known that UKSV officials recommended refusing vetting, he would have blocked the appointment. Barton’s comment shows how much pressure the system was under to avoid this.

Second, Barton refused to confirm Starmer’s claim that due process was followed. Even as I write, Kemi Badenoch will be incorporating this into the speech she will give in the Commons this afternoon because it backs her case that MPs were misled.

And, third, Barton made it fairly clear that he could not support the decision to sack Olly Robbins – now seen as another grievous error by the PM.