A Three-Line Whip Is No Substitute for Authority

The buck does not stop with advisers; it goes straight to the top – and in this case, to the Prime Minister. Or at least, it should.

What has become steadily clearer over recent weeks and months in the Mandelson saga is that heads must roll among staff in Sir Keir Starmer’s desperate bid to save his own.

It should, however, serve as the starkest warning yet to his MPs. They have watched some of his closest allies sacrificed, senior civil servants dismissed, and for what? To preserve the most unpopular Prime Minister in British polling, who has presided over a dysfunctional No.10, a sluggish economy and – in the matter at hand – exceedingly poor judgement in appointing Peter Mandelson in the first place, only then to mislead Parliament over the flawed process and pressure that followed.

All this from a man who once relied so heavily on process in opposition. His own sword is being turned against him.

One hopes as much was on the minds of the 333 Labour MPs whipped through the voting lobby last night to back Starmer and defeat the Tory motion to send him before the Privileges Committee to explain both his conduct and assess his misleading of the Commons.

What clearer sign of full support and confidence is there than having to impose a three-line whip on your own MPs to force them into voting for you?

Fifteen Labour MPs appeared to grasp the gravity of the moment, but one in particular put it plainly. Emma Lewell, Labour MP for South Shields since 2013, told the Commons: “I feel the way that today’s vote has been handled by the Government smacks once again of being out of touch and disconnected from the public mood… It has played into the terrible narrative that there is something to hide, and good, decent colleagues will be accused of being complicit in a cover-up.”

We heard yesterday from one of Starmer’s sacrificial lambs at the Foreign Affairs Select Committee: former chief of staff Morgan McSweeney. “Nobody was fine about it. Everyone could see there were risks,” he said of Mandelson’s appointment. Yet those risks were never properly explored, despite how much was already in the public domain, including Mandelson staying at Epstein’s house after his conviction – none of which seem to have been disqualifying until flagged again. But the central point, as McSweeney made clear, was this: “It wasn’t my decision. It was the Prime Minister’s decision.”

Earlier in the session, the committee also heard from former Foreign Office permanent secretary Philip Barton on the matter of pressure surrounding Mandelson’s appointment. “I was not aware of any pressure on the substance of the DV (developed vetting) case,” Barton said. But, he added: “Was there pressure? Absolutely.”

There followed several hours of debate ahead of yesterday’s vote, in which Tory MPs laid out the ways in which Sir Keir Starmer had misled Parliament, dismissing claims that “due process” had been followed and that “no pressure whatsoever” had been exerted over Mandelson’s appointment. Labour MPs, for their part, insisted they retained full confidence in the Prime Minister’s judgement and argued that Sir Olly Robbins’s evidence of pressure referred merely to the urgency of reaching a decision.

Tory MP and whip Harriet Cross made the point neatly: both Starmer’s claim of “no pressure whatsoever” and Sir Olly Robbins’s account of “constant pressure” cannot be true at once. “They need to choose who they agree with and which of those is correct. They cannot both be correct,” she said.

As her colleague Joe Robertson cleverly intervened: “I have a suggestion for this disagreement that is going on in the House: why do we not refer it to the Privileges Committee?” That option, of course, was rejected by Labour – despite a majority of Britons (61 per cent, according to YouGov) supporting an inquiry into whether Starmer misled Parliament over Mandelson’s appointment, including 49 per cent of Labour voters.

Kemi Badenoch delivered a forceful speech to the Commons that went down well on the Conservative benches. She said: “It is clear that full due process was not followed…the question is: what kind of people are they [Labour MPs]? Are they people who will live up to the promises they made about standards and the rules mattering, or are they people who abandon their promises to be complicit in a cover-up?”

Labour MPs must now carry not merely a damaged Prime Minister, but a grievously wounded one – and have to explain to their constituents why they thought that vote was a good one, and why they were content to be seen as “complicit in a cover-up”. It simply looks dreadful.