Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle has been urged to call Sir Keir Starmer to Parliament to deliver a fresh statement on Lord Peter Mandelson following Sir Olly Robbins’s “factually devastating” evidence.
Speaking to GB News, broadcaster Kevin Maguire warned that the “ground is shifting” under the Prime Minister after the ex-Foreign Office boss was grilled by MPs.
During his questioning at the Foreign Affairs Committee, Sir Olly admitted there was a “strong expectation” and “constant pressure” from No10 regarding Lord Mandelson’s appointment as US Ambassador.
Sir Olly told MPs that it would have been “very difficult” to have denied the disgraced peer security clearance, and that the United Kingdom Security Vetting (UKSV) was “leaning against” giving Lord Mandelson the green light.
Reacting to the almost three-hour grilling, Mr Maguire told GB News that Sir Robbins delivered a series of “factually devastating” bombshells.
He said: “Olly Robbins was quietly, reasonably, factually devastating.
“You could feel the ground shifting under the Prime Minister, because there are more questions than answers now.”
Mr Maguire questioned why Sir Olly was sacked from his post by Sir Keir, having heard the evidence given.
Kevin Maguire has urged the Speaker to call on Keir Starmer to attend today’s emergency debate following Olly Robbins evidence
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GB NEWS / PA / PARLIAMENT TV
He argued: “You’re looking at Olly Robbins and you are thinking, why is he being sacked?
“He’s sacked him to save his own skin, I think. I think that’s absolutely right, but the fall guy isn’t going to carry the can.”
Calling on the Speaker of the House of Commons, the broadcaster urged Sir Lindsay Hoyle to call upon the Prime Minister to attend the emergency debate on the matter.
He said: “I wouldn’t just wait for Prime Minister’s Questions, and the debate this afternoon isn’t the place to do it, but the Speaker should say to the Prime Minister, you’ve got to come back and you’ve got to answer in a statement.
Sir Olly Robbins delivered his damning evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee this morning
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PARLIAMENT TV
“You can’t escape, you’ve got to stand it, you’ve got to answer all the questions that have been raised by Olly Robbins, because we’re in this position where Downing Street thought that vetting didn’t matter.”
He added: “But then if he failed, in inverted commas, he had a go. While Olly Robbins is saying it mattered, but it didn’t exactly matter that he failed.”
Declaring Sir Keir’s judgement on appointing Lord Mandelson was “fatally wrong”, he told GB News: “It comes down in the end that the Prime Minister’s judgment has been colossally, possibly for him, fatally wrong in appointing him in the first place.
“And we’ve discovered that he was sacked over his relationships with Jeffrey Epstein, but that’s not why he had problems with the vetting. We don’t quite know if it’s Russia or China or both.”
Mr Maguire told GB News that the appointment of Peter Mandelson was ‘fatally wrong’
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GB NEWS
Weighing in on the discussion, broadcaster Dr Renee Hoenderkamp defended Sir Olly and hailed his “integrity” while giving evidence to the committee.
She said: “I think actually what the average person in the street will see here, they will see is a deeply serious man with integrity, versus another serious man without integrity.
“And I think it will be as simple as that. They’ll look at Starmer and think he has no integrity, and they’ll look at this man and think, what’s going on? He’s clearly real.”
GB News Political Editor Christopher Hope agreed with Dr Renee, concluding: “He was doing his job, he’s serving his political masters, doing what they want. He’s getting pressure from the bosses office, he’s doing his best. It just seems, frankly outrageous that Olly Robbins was sacked.”