Downing Street has resisted calls to sack Keir Starmer’s top aide, insisting Morgan McSweeney maintains the prime minister’s confidence, as frustration grows over the wait for Peter Mandelson’s documents, which some fear could last for weeks.
Amid warnings from Labor backbenchers that McSweeney’s survival would leave Starmer’s position “untenable”, Starmer apologized to Jeffrey Epstein’s victims for appointing Mandelson, a close friend of the convicted child sex offender, as US ambassador.
A day after a messy Commons deal to release vetting papers on Mandelson’s appointment left many Labor MPs in revolt, there was anger about the role of McSweeney, the PM’s chief of staff.
A Labor MP said: “People want it [McSweeney] to go, more than ever. The current situation is unsustainable. “
Karl Turner, the Hull East MP and a vocal critic of the current No 10 operation, said McSweeney’s stay would leave the prime minister’s position “untenable”. “I don’t want the PM to go. What I want is the PM to make changes,” he told the BBC.
Downing Street officials pointed to Starmer’s strong defense of McSweeney in the Commons on Wednesday, where he said nothing had changed. The PM’s supporters know that shedding his chief of staff could leave Starmer directly in the firing line of a future crisis.
Amid continued speculation about a possible leadership challenge, Starmer sought to regain the initiative in a speech and media Q&A in Hastings, ostensibly about community values but dominated by the aftermath of Mandelson.
Starmer said he understood the frustration of his MPs, and called for them to rally the government.
Saying that Epstein’s victims “live with a trauma that most of us can hardly understand”, Starmer continued: “I want to say this. I’m sorry – I’m sorry for what happened to you, I’m sorry that many people in power have failed, I’m sorry for trusting Mandelson’s lies and pointing him out, and I’m sorry that even now you are forced to re-watch this public story.
Pressed on why he approved the appointment when Mandelson’s post-prison links to Epstein were public knowledge, he dodged the question, blaming what he said were Mandelson’s lies and the need to review vetting procedures.
There is growing frustration among some ministers about the delay in releasing the documents. Nothing is expected until next week at the earliest, and with officials saying they don’t know how many messages and files may be involved, there are concerns the process could take weeks.
Starmer had planned to release the documents on Wednesday, ahead of a Conservative motion to press the issue, but he was delayed by a warning from the Metropolitan police that some of the information could affect their investigation into whether Mandelson leaked market-sensitive information as a minister.
Some in the cabinet believed the government should go beyond the police, with one arguing it would show “leadership” to use the ruling that documents related to Mandelson’s vetting were likely unrelated to the criminal investigation.
However, in the material shown by the government to the Met, it is known that there are concerns with the small number of documents published, which are believed to be less than 10, a small part of what the detectives have examined.
For most of the documents, detectives have no objection to releasing them to the public.
Wednesday’s Commons motion said any decisions on whether documents should be withheld or redacted would be made not by the government but by parliament’s intelligence and security committee (ISC), a compromise that won over Labor backbenchers.
In a letter to Starmer on Thursday, the chair and deputy chair of the ISC said any material deemed sensitive should be handed over entirely to them, with the committee deciding what should not be published.
The ISC cannot say how long its work will take until it knows the number of documents to be examined, said the letter from Labor peer Kevan Jones, the chair, and Conservative MP Jeremy Wright, the vice-chair. The committee, they added, “would be grateful to, now, be told the date by which we will receive the papers”.
While Downing Street said it had “started discussions with the ISC about the process of releasing these documents”, the committee opposed this, saying it was following the wishes of the Commons, not No 10, and ministers should provide information.
The vacuum of new information has made it difficult for Downing Street to move on from speculation about Starmer’s future. Long-term borrowing costs in the UK hit their highest level since the budget on Thursday as traders reacted to the possibility of a change in No 10.
Asked about the dissatisfaction of many of his MPs, Starmer told them to focus on key messages such as the cost of living, saying: “Every minute you spend not talking and focusing on that is an absolute minute wasted.”
But even many sympathetic voices seem to be losing patience. Speaking on Sky’s Electoral Dysfunction Podcast, Harriet Harman, the former Labor deputy leader, said Starmer should “stop blaming Mandelson”, take responsibility for the appointment and do a “reset” of his No 10 team.
He added: “I don’t think it’s inevitable that it will bring him down, but it will bring him down unless he takes action, which he must.”
Opposition parties have called for a vote of no confidence in the prime minister, with the Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, and the Liberal Democrat leader, Ed Davey, raising the issue on Thursday.