Allies of Sir Olly Robbins have hit back at Sir Keir Starmer, claiming that the sacked mandarin had a “duty” under current rules not to tell Downing Street that Peter Mandelson had failed vetting. Vincent MacMaster (the pseudonym of a former Cabinet Office civil servant) has the details in the Spectator.
Section 3 of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 assigns the power to manage the civil service to “the Minister for the Civil Service” who is, both by convention and presently, the Prime Minister. Conversely, the Act assigns the power to manage the diplomatic service to the Secretary of State (that is, the Foreign Secretary), and expressly says that this includes the power to make appointments to the diplomatic service. The Foreign Secretary, not the Prime Minister, is thus the relevant appointing authority for the diplomatic service. The Prime Minister clearly has political influence, and in practice may be consulted on or even politically try and direct major appointments, but he has no formal legal role in the selection of ambassadors.
The Act also says that the management powers over both the home civil service and the diplomatic service do not cover national security vetting. Vetting sits outside the ordinary management power. A diplomatic appointment and a vetting decision are legally distinct things. Official vetting guidance likewise treats national security vetting as a separate process from the appointment itself.
Final decisions on difficult vetting questions and any waiver process ordinarily rest at permanent secretary level. That strongly implies the probability that Sir Olly Robbins, the Permanent Secretary at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, authorised Mandelson’s clearance. A letter sent jointly by Robbins and Yvette Cooper to the Foreign Affairs select committee on September 16th last year seems to imply this by stating that ‘the [vetting] process is also independent of ministers who are not informed of any findings other than the final outcome’.
On the legal front, therefore, it seems correct to say that the Prime Minister should have been informed only of the outcome of the appointment and vetting process conducted within the Foreign Office, not treated as a formal decision-maker himself. The official vetting process also appears to mandate that ministers not be told anything about vetting other than the final decision.
This is potentially the true scandal of this entire affair: the process as outlined by Sir Olly in his letter to the Foreign Affairs committee requires that he alone bear the responsibility for overturning the findings of the security vetting procedure. He is notionally forbidden from informing ministers of anything other than the final outcome which, taken literally, would prohibit him from revealing that he overruled the security services’ determination.
It is very clear in retrospect that Robbins should not have reached the judgement he did. But it is worth readers and politicians alike reflecting on how appropriate it is that an unelected career bureaucracy is expected to make such monumental decisions with no democratic oversight. Sir Olly made a mistake, but it was a mistake he was effectively boxed into making by a system very clearly designed to keep ministers out of the decision-making chain.
Worth reading in full.
If that is the system then it is, as ‘MacMaster’ implies, bonkers. But it doesn’t get Starmer off the hook. Because Mandelson’s appointment was ordered by Downing Street and was, as National Security Adviser Jonathan Powell said, “weirdly rushed“, with Mandelson already in post and given top security clearance weeks before vetting was complete. Officials were “put in an invidious position” by Downing Street, says civil service union boss Mike Clancy, only being asked to vet Mandelson after his appointment had already been publicly announced by the Prime Minister. Indeed, Robbins himself was only appointed on January 8th 2025, several weeks after Mandelson’s appointment was announced on December 20th 2024, making blaming him doubly inappropriate.
Ultimately, as a political appointment ordered and expedited by Downing Street, it’s on Starmer.
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It’s:-
Is nothing Starmer’s responsibility, in his charge or under his control? Evidently not. So if he is just a helpless, hapless victim of events, institutions and other people, what is he actually for?
We would be no worse off with a weather vane as Prime Minister, cold, rigid, inanimate, pushed in whatever direction the wind dictates.
If the government was elected by 20% of the electorate, what does “democratic oversight” mean?
The Chinese told Starmer to appoint Mandelson.
No doubt, and why he ignored vetting.
Everything Labour does is at CCP command.
1.Starmer appointed Mandeson before the security clearance was obtained.
2.Robbins signed clearance despite security services reporting him as unsuitable.
3. Starmer and Robbins are unfit to continue in their positions. If they are not sacked, the government is unfit to govern.
Even without this vetting process there were plenty of people at the time who were flummoxed Mandelson was appointed. He had disgraced himself several times before. Why was he even considered in the first place?
Is Robbins gay? I am somewhat disturbed by the seemingly high proportion of gay people involved in the higher echelons of the civil service. I think they’re over represented and bring a gay mindset to decisions. They are also quite strongly left minded.
Crooks, the lot of ’em!
Who cares a fig for Robbins anyway? I seem to remember him as one of the most prominent members of the post-referendum Stop-Brexit-F**k-the-Electorate movement. Ergo, he can take a long walk off a short etc.
Robbins is the scumbag who Treason May used to undercut David Davis who was the official Brexit Secretary in her government. Davis complained that Robbins was given an office “just down the corridor” from his own.
Basically Robbins was, and is, the voice of the European Union, and did his best to sabotage the expressed democratic wish of the British people to be governed by people who are elected, accountable, and removable by election.
His “Brexit office” gradually but successfully superseded David Davis.
Treason May was pulling out all the stops to get through Parliament her “Withdrawal Agreement”, which was rumoured to have been translated from the German, judging by its grammatical structure.
Anyone who studies German can identify an imperfect translation, but May didn’t care; she tried three times to get it through Parliament, and was lining up a fourth attempt, when normally a Prime minister would have resigned after the first rejection of such crucial legislation.
By good luck, fortune smiled on us:
a) The rare EU Parliament elections were a couple of months away, May 23rd.
b) We had a certain Nigel Farage, who in no time organised the new “Brexit Party”
This party wiped out all… Read more »
Yes, even if he has been stitched up by the perfidious establishment it’s very difficult to not see it as karma providing a response to his previous conduct.
Only Robbins is a piece of shit and so it’s good to see him shafted.
For whatever reason.
Even if in this case he’s actually sort of blameless, which I doubt.
His sort are never blameless. A face made for kicking.
Good to see someone else who hasn’t forgotten the gang of traitorous scum of which May, Robbins and of course the sour slime-faced shitbag Phillip Hammond were the leaders.
Good riddance Robbins, couldn’t happen to a more deserving man.
“………system very clearly designed to keep ministers out of the decision-making chain.”
( ie in the dark.)
Plausible deniability built in to the system so that anything and everything can be denied and ignored.
All part of rhe dark, Trotskyist lord Bliar’s big plan to angle our democracy so that a permanent, socialist civil service would hold sway over our democratic processes.
Time for a Redtoration and a big clear out of laws. Just cancel Bliar’s act and go back to a previous law and situation. No need to create a complex new act.
Even if it is true thar Starmer didn’t know until last Tuesday that Mandelson had failed the vetting process you have to wonder at the feeble excuses offered over the last few months.
In my opinion tales of processes and bureaucracy will not be enough to justify the choice of Mandelson for Ambassador.
Wasn’t Mandy in position before Robbins had even arrived at the Foreign Office?
As per gov.uk press releases…
…20 December 2024 “The Prime Minister has today confirmed the appointment of Lord Peter Mandelson to be the next British Ambassador to the United States of America.”
…8 January 2025 “The Cabinet Secretary, with the approval of the Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister, has announced the appointment of Sir Oliver (Olly) Robbins as the new Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office.”
Open and shut case M’Lud. Send him down.
Great point – I’ve added this to the main article.
Well spotted