London, April 28 (IANS) British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the vote on the following day to decide whether he will be investigated is a “political stunt” by his “political opponents.”
“What’s my political opponents are doing tomorrow is a political stunt,” Starmer said.
“Having a political stunt adds absolutely nothing to the transparency we’ve got. It’s not good use of parliament’s time.”
British House of Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle announced earlier in the day that Starmer will face the vote over claims he misled the parliament regarding the vetting of former British Ambassador to the United States Peter Mandelson.
Hoyle said the parliament will hold a debate and vote on whether the matter should be passed on to the Committee of Privileges in the House of Commons for further investigation.
Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch said on Monday that she is presenting a motion to the House of Commons to refer Starmer to the privileges committee.
“The prime minister misled the House of Commons repeatedly. He appointed a national security risk and friend of a convicted pedophile to be our ambassador in Washington, a sensitive diplomatic post,” she said.
“He pretended that full due process was followed for this appointment. It was not.”
It was revealed in mid-April that before Mandelson took up his role, he had been denied a clearance in January 2025 after a developed vetting process, a confidential background check by security officials, but the decision was overruled by Britain’s Foreign Office.
While Starmer admitted he was only aware of the situation on April 14, saying it was “completely unacceptable,” Badenoch accused him of breaching the Ministerial Code by failing to inform parliament in a timely manner about the vetting scandal, Xinhua news agency reported.
Mandelson was sacked as Britain’s chief diplomat in Washington in September 2025 after revelations about his friendship with convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
Earlier this year, he was briefly arrested following a criminal investigation into his alleged misconduct in public office, including the possible disclosure of market-sensitive information.
–IANS
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