Lee Anderson refused to withdraw the ‘lying’ accusation (Image: Parliament TV)
Reform MP Lee Anderson has been ejected from the House of Commons after accusing Sir Keir Starmer of “lying” about the appointment of Lord Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US. The fiery exchange took place in the middle of the Prime Minister’s parliamentary statement over the Mandelson vetting scandal.
Sir Keir has been accused of misleading Parliament after repeatedly assuring MPs that “due process” was followed. He said he was “furious” that he was not told the disgraced peer had failed his security vetting. Mr Anderson said: “The problem the Prime Minister’s got is no one believes him. The public don’t believe him. The MPs on this side of the House don’t believe him. His own gullible backbenchers don’t believe him. So does the Prime Minister agree with me, he’s been lying?”
Parliamentary rules forbid MPs from calling each other liars. House of Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle intervened during monday’s session to say: “Sorry, we don’t use those words, and I’m sure the member’s withdrawn it.”
But the Ashfield MP blasted back: “Mr Speaker, I have the greatest respect for you and your office, but I will not withdraw it. That man couldn’t lie straight in bed.”
The Speaker then asked Mr Anderson to leave.
Keir Starmer said he was ‘furious’ he was not told about vetting (Image: Getty)
Lord Mandelson was appointed as Britain’s ambassador to the US but was later fired after further information about the former Labour peer’s association with the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein came to light.
Sir Keir insists he was not aware that Lord Mandelson had failed security vetting.
In a statement to the House of Commons, the Prime Minister said Lord Mandelson was a “direct ministerial appointment” and that it was usual for security vetting to happen afterwards in such cases. No 10 has now demanded that the process be changed moving forward.
The Prime Minister told MPs it was “staggering” that he was not told Lord Mandelson had failed the vetting. In his statement, he said that No 10 and Parliament should have had this information “a long, long time ago”.
He told MPs: “Last Tuesday evening, I found out for the first time that on January 29, 2025, before Peter Mandelson took up his position as ambassador, that Foreign Office officials granted him developed vetting clearance, against the specific recommendation of the UK Security Vetting, that developed vetting clearance should be denied.
“Not only that, the Foreign Office officials who made that decision did not pass this information to me, to the Foreign Secretary, to her predecessor, the Deputy Prime Minister, to any other minister, or even to the former cabinet secretary Sir Chris Wormald.
“I found this staggering, and therefore last Tuesday I immediately instructed officials in Downing Street and the Cabinet Office to urgently establish the facts, on my authority.
“I wanted to know who made the decision, on what basis, who knew, and Mr Speaker, I wanted that information for the precise and explicit purpose of updating this House, because this is information I should have had a long time ago, and it is information that the House should have had a long time ago.
“It is information that I and the House had the right to know.”