Sir Keir Starmer has been accused of sacking the top civil servant in the Foreign Office to save his own position.

The Prime Minister fired Sir Olly Robbins, the Foreign Office permanent under-secretary, over the Mandelson vetting fiasco on Thursday night after he and Yvette Cooper, the Foreign Secretary, withdrew their confidence in him.

Sir Olly’s departure came hours after news broke that Lord Mandelson had failed the enhanced vetting process for his appointment as ambassador to the US, but was given the post anyway after civil servants dismissed the findings.

Sir Keir is now facing calls to resign from all three of Britain’s main opposition leaders, who have accused him of dismissing Sir Olly to prolong his own political survival.

Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform UK, said: “[The Government is] all over the place on this – it is totally unbelievable and Robbins, he’s the sacrificial lamb in an attempt to try and save the Prime Minister, and it just isn’t good enough.”

Kemi Badenoch, the head of the Tories, said: “Keir Starmer has now sacked everyone involved in Mandelson’s appointment – Chris Wormald, Morgan McSweeney, Olly Robbins.

“But Starmer was ultimately the one who approved it. He’s got no one left to sack. It’s time for him to take responsibility. He should go.”

Sir Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat leader, accused Sir Keir of “catastrophically poor judgment”.

The controversy about Lord Mandelson’s appointment has become a crisis for No 10, after he was sacked last year over his close relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

Downing Street sought to blame Foreign Office officials for overruling Lord Mandelson’s failure to secure security clearance, insisting that neither Sir Keir nor any Government ministers, including David Lammy, who was foreign secretary at the time, knew about it.

Sources said the Prime Minister found out about the vetting situation on Tuesday evening, after civil servants charged with finding documents about Lord Mandelson’s appointment uncovered the advice.

Yet Sir Keir failed to update Parliament when he appeared at Prime Minister’s Questions a day later.

It is understood that Sir Olly was then dismissed from his Foreign Office post after a phone conversation with Sir Keir late on Thursday. Earlier in the day, the Prime Minister had met with Ms Cooper to discuss the mandarin’s position.

Darren Jones, the Prime Minister’s right-hand man, announced on Friday that Government departments would no longer be able to override security advice.

Mr Farage said it was “not credible” that Sir Keir had not been informed about the overruling of Lord Mandelson’s failed vetting until Tuesday.

“Sacking Robbins won’t hold – it’s the end of Starmer,” he added. “He’ll limp on to May 7, be smashed in the elections by us and be gone.”

Sir Keir was already set to face a leadership challenge over the dire set of local election results his party is expected to achieve next month. Now, restive backbenchers in his party probably feel more emboldened to move against him.

Jon Trickett, a leading voice of Labour’s Left-wing campaign group, said: “It’s time we returned to the honourable tradition of ministers (and Prime Ministers too) taking responsibility for errors within their domain, rather than blaming the staff.”

The Cabinet Office is in the process of pulling together more files related to Lord Mandelson’s appointment to release to the public, following a successful attempt to secure transparency by the Conservatives.

Mrs Badenoch accused Sir Keir of misleading Parliament about the disgraced peer because he had repeatedly assured MPs that “due process” was followed over the appointment.

Critics argue that Sir Keir should have known about concerns from security vetting officials, although friends of Morgan McSweeney, his former chief of staff, and sources close to the Cabinet Office’s propriety and ethics team both said they had also been unaware of the situation at the time.

“The Prime Minister appointed Peter Mandelson before the vetting had been completed, vetting Mandelson failed. Starmer then said full due process was followed. That is misleading Parliament,” Mrs Badenoch said.

“I’m only holding him to the same standards to which he’s held previous prime ministers – that if they mislead Parliament, they should resign. In these dangerous times, Britain cannot afford to have a Prime Minister who the country doesn’t trust. Starmer has betrayed our national security. He should go.”

Sir Ed told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Friday that evidence suggested Sir Keir had misled Parliament, adding that “the buck has to stop” with the Prime Minister.

The first tranche of files relating to Lord Mandelson’s appointment, released last month, showed Sir Keir and his then chief of staff, Mr McSweeney, decided to appoint the peer despite warnings about his previous conduct.

It is relatively unusual for a political figure to be appointed as an ambassador, but No 10 believed Lord Mandelson stood a better chance of ingratiating Britain with Donald Trump than a career civil servant.

Sir Keir cancelled the appointment of Sir Tim Barrow, a former ambassador to Russia, to the post after Labour won the last general election in July 2024.

The Cabinet Office’s propriety and ethics team warned that Lord Mandelson’s appointment could become a political problem for the Government, but Mr McSweeney decided that No 10 should proceed with the hiring process.

The appointment was announced before Lord Mandelson had completed developed vetting, which is the usual process for a government official with access to top secret information.

Sir Olly told the Commons foreign affairs select committee in November that vetting reports were often “relatively straightforward”.

But questioned about the disgraced peer’s vetting process, he told MPs: “Ones that require more senior judgment, and potentially a discussion about managing and mitigating risks, are escalated appropriately.”

Known as an experienced Whitehall operator, Sir Olly previously worked on the UK’s post-Brexit settlement, before taking a job with the investment bank Goldman Sachs. He returned to public life in January 2025 as one of the Government’s most senior officials, weeks after Lord Mandelson was unveiled as the ambassador to the US.

Sir Keir is now expected to make a statement to MPs about Lord Mandelson on Monday, after a visit to Paris on Friday to meet Emmanuel Macron, the French president, about reopening the Strait of Hormuz.

Even if the Prime Minister did not know about the disgraced peer’s failed vetting, there is precedent for ministers to resign after inadvertently misleading the Commons. Amber Rudd, the former home secretary, resigned in 2018 after inadvertently misleading MPs over the Windrush scandal.

The Ministerial Code also states that ministers who knowingly mislead Parliament should resign.

Sir Keir has apologised for appointing Lord Mandelson in late 2024, which came despite warnings by the Cabinet Office that the peer’s friendship with Epstein posed a “general reputational risk” to the Government.

The scandal intensified after emails from Lord Mandelson to Epstein were released by the US Department of Justice earlier this year.

The Metropolitan Police has opened an investigation into Lord Mandelson’s alleged misconduct in a public office, after emails showed he had discussed government policy with the late paedophile while working as business secretary in Gordon Brown’s government.

Lord Mandelson was forced to resign from Sir Tony Blair’s government twice.

In 1999 he resigned as Industry Secretary after it emerged an interest-free loan from Cabinet colleague Geoffrey Robinson helped him purchase a house, despite Robinson’s business dealings being subject to an inquiry by Mandelson’s department.

Two years later, he resigned as Northern Ireland Secretary following accusations of using his position to influence a passport application for businessman Srichand Hinduja.

Sir Olly did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday night.