"I should not have appointed Peter Mandelson," Starmer told the House of Commons yesterday.
"I take responsibility for that decision and I apologise again to the victims of the pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who were clearly failed by my decision."
Starmer also said he had followed the standard process in naming Mandelson to the post before he had been vetted.
Starmer is heading for a showdown with the senior official he fired over the saga, former Foreign Office chief Olly Robbins, who approved Mandelson’s security clearances despite the failed vetting.
Robbins was due to speak to Parliament’s foreign affairs committee overnight (NZ time), a moment of potential danger for Starmer if he reveals damaging details about the appointment.
The renewed questions have piled fresh pressure on Starmer ahead of a crunch set of local elections on May 7, in which polling suggests the governing Labour Party will suffer heavy losses.
If that materialises, Starmer is seen as vulnerable to a leadership challenge.
The prime minister told the chamber he only found out last Tuesday the Foreign Office had granted Mandelson clearance against the express advice of UK Security Vetting (UKSV), the agency in charge of the due diligence.
He said the country’s top civil servant at the time of the appointment — then cabinet secretary Chris Wormald — had also not been told Mandelson had failed vetting.
"I simply do not accept that Foreign Office officials could not have informed me of UKSV recommendations while also maintaining the necessary confidentiality that vetting requires," Starmer said
"The recommendation in the Peter Mandelson case could and should have been shared with me before he took up his post."
The scandal has repeatedly surfaced to bring political heat on to the prime minister since last September, when Bloomberg News revealed the depth of the envoy’s relationship with the late, disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Starmer sacked Mandelson, but further details emerged when the United States Department of Justice published millions more files relating to Epstein at the end of January.
The following month, Starmer’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney and his communications director Tim Allan quit, prompting longtime Starmer ally and Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar to call for the prime minister to go.
Starmer survived when every member of his cabinet publicly declared their support, but ministers have been more reticent since last week, when The Guardian revealed Mandelson failed vetting by UK agencies.
The House of Commons, also in February, voted to force the government to release thousands of documents relating to Mandelson’s appointment.
In the first set of documents released, it emerged Starmer went ahead and appointed Mandelson before vetting was carried out. — Bloomberg News
