Keir Starmer came to power promising an end to the chaos and scandal of the Conservatives’ 14 years in charge. Now, he faces a similar parliamentary assault using the very tactics Labour employed against Boris Johnson during the Partygate affair.
Familiar Parliamentary Tools
The lexicon of a British parliamentary scandal is arcane. As Starmer fights to remain prime minister, he has had to respond to a “humble address”, had his judgment picked over during an “emergency opposition day debate”, and now faces the ignominy of a “privilege motion”. These terms are familiar to close observers of UK politics: they are all parliamentary tools used by Labour in opposition to hold the Conservatives accountable, notably during Partygate.
At first sight, the two controversies are very different. Johnson was ousted after allegations he attended parties in Downing Street during a pandemic lockdown. Starmer is alleged to have bypassed normal security vetting to install Peter Mandelson as ambassador to Washington, as revealed by a Guardian investigation.
But one key accusation Starmer threw at Johnson in 2022—misleading parliament—is now being thrown at him. The ministerial code deems this a resignation offence.
Conservative Strategy
Much of Labour’s parliamentary action was built around proving that specific point—a playbook opposition Conservatives say they are studying. “We absolutely have learned the lessons from what happened during Partygate,” said one Conservative veteran. “Our long-term strategy is to trap the prime minister progressively until he can no longer deny that he misled parliament.”
The Mandelson Appointment
Starmer’s problems stem from his decision in late 2024 to appoint Peter Mandelson, a Labour peer and veteran of successive governments, as ambassador in Washington. Politicians are rarely appointed to UK diplomatic posts, and the decision was controversial because Mandelson had twice been forced to resign from government over separate scandals. He was also known to have been a friend of Jeffrey Epstein, even after Epstein’s conviction for sexual offences against children.
Starmer sacked Mandelson within a year after documents showed his friendship with Epstein was closer than realised. But the focus is now on the revelation that Starmer appointed Mandelson despite vetting officials recommending he be denied security clearance.
That disclosure came through a process started by Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader. Earlier this year, she secured a “humble address” motion demanding the government publish documents relating to Mandelson’s appointment. Technically a petition to the monarch, a humble address can extract documents from the government machinery. Starmer used the tactic four times in opposition, to access Brexit documents or security advice on Johnson’s elevation of Evgeny Lebedev to the House of Lords.
Ministers have typically used national security exemptions to avoid disclosing sensitive documents. But this time, gathering the files revealed written advice that Mandelson should not be granted security clearance—something even the prime minister says he did not expect.
Parliamentary Pressure
The Guardian’s disclosures last week that the advice existed and was overlooked by the Foreign Office threw the government into disarray. Badenoch brought an emergency motion to the House of Commons, urging MPs to hold the government to account. Now she is pushing for a vote on whether the privileges committee should investigate whether Starmer misled the Commons when he repeatedly told MPs “full due process” had been followed.
Misleading the house is “contempt of parliament”, one of the most serious offences a parliamentarian can commit. Anyone who accuses another MP of misleading parliament is liable to be thrown out of the chamber. An MP found guilty can be suspended. When Labour forced a privileges committee investigation into whether Johnson lied about lockdown parties, it led to his resignation as an MP.
“Misleading parliament has always been a big deal,” said the Conservative veteran. “We are very aware of a change in the meaning of contempt in 2022 which means that it is contempt not only to mislead the house but also to refuse to answer reasonable questions in it.”
Tim Bale, a professor of politics at Queen Mary, University of London, said: “Command of parliamentary process is incredibly important for a leader of the opposition. If Badenoch has that, she can use it, if not to prise Starmer out of Downing Street, then at least to damage the morale of Labour MPs and ministers so his position is untenable.”
Deeper Problems
Though much of the focus is on what Starmer knew about Mandelson’s security vetting and whether he misled MPs, the prime minister faces deeper-rooted problems. After winning a historic victory in 2024, things began to unravel for his Labour government, partly due to budgetary problems. Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced a deeply unpopular cut to winter fuel subsidies for pensioners soon after taking office, then unveiled a budget raising taxes to levels not seen since the 1940s. As the economy flatlined, ministers looked to save from the welfare budget, only to back down in the face of opposition from their own MPs.
Starmer’s net approval rating has dropped from around 0 to about -40 percentage points. Next month, he faces elections that could see his party swept from power in councils across the country and come third in its former strongholds of Scotland and Wales.
This has created a situation where scandals that could otherwise be weathered threaten to topple the government. “Popular prime ministers and governments are able to fend off anything the opposition does,” said Bale. “But if they are in trouble, anything the opposition does tends to feed into the instability.”
Reputation at Stake
The problems for Starmer are especially acute given he came to power promising an end to the chaos and scandal of the Conservatives’ 14 years in charge. As a former public prosecutor and scourge of Johnson, his reputation was, in the words of one ministerial colleague, that of being “Mr Rules”.
Many think Starmer’s travails do not compare with the extended rule-breaking under Johnson. Hannah White, chief executive of the Institute for Government thinktank, said: “Like Partygate, the Mandelson case is exposing a prime minister’s mistake through a parliamentary inquiry, ratcheting up the frustration of backbenchers. But the real damage from Partygate came from public anger at Johnson’s sustained hypocrisy of setting rules he didn’t follow. Whereas Starmer’s peril is in how his party views his judgment in decisions and appointments.”
When Starmer looks back on his time pursuing Johnson, he may reflect it was not Partygate that caused Johnson’s downfall, but a later controversy concerning alleged sexual misconduct by Conservative MP Chris Pincher, whom Johnson had made a minister. That was when MPs lost confidence and started refusing to defend him. After more than 50 ministers and aides resigned, Johnson accepted his fate and quit.
Veterans of that period saw a similarity this week in the behaviour of Starmer’s energy secretary, Ed Miliband, who appeared reluctant to defend the prime minister on television. “A mistake was made,” Miliband told Sky News. “Peter Mandelson should never have been appointed. And that was a mistake. And the prime minister has apologised for it. Rightly so.”
Bale said: “Where this scandal and Partygate are similar is that it actually hinges on the confidence of the cabinet. Once you start losing the support of your cabinet, that spells the end, and that might be what is happening now.”
