No 10 ‘uninterested’ in Barton’s concerns over appointment, he claimspublished at 09:55 BST
MP Richard Foord now asks Barton for more detail about why he initially
had reservations around Lord Mandelson’s appointment.
Barton responds that it was because of Mandelson’s known
associations with Jeffrey Epstein, which he suggests was a “toxic hot
potato” topic in the US, particularly as the election there was approaching.
He is then pushed on whether No 10 was dismissive about these
concerns.
“The word I would use is uninterested,” he replies,
explaining that people wanted to make sure that all the practical steps
required for Mandelson to be appointed before Trump’s inauguration date were
completed in time.
“No one said to me, ‘look Philip the prime minister knows
there’s some risks around this, can you really, really make sure the vetting is
done rigorously'”, he explains.
Instead, he says, the demands were simply around making sure the
vetting was done in time.
On whether there was an atmosphere of pressure, Barton says he
didn’t receive any direct calls from Starmer’s former chief of staff Morgan
McSweeney, and “cannot recall” him swearing at him at all over
Mandelson.
Barton confirms that he received a letter on 18 December, which
told him that Starmer had decided on Mandelson, and therefore could
arrangements be put in place for a handover before Trump’s inauguration –
“a very compressed timescale”.
Trump was inaugurated for his second term as president on 20
January 2025.
“That is what creates the pressure,” he adds,
stressing that no one was in any doubt around the importance Starmer attached
to having Mandelson in DC “in very short order”.
