Peter Mandelson failed security vetting for the US ambassador job because of his links to China, Russia and Israel, sources have confirmed.
Security services said the disgraced Labour peer should be denied clearance for the top Washington role because of his associations with China’s minister of finance, Lan Fo’an, the sanctions-hit Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska and a former Israeli military intelligence general, Tamir Hayman, sources told The Independent. But the decision was overridden by the Foreign Office and he was appointed anyway.
Of particular concern was the fact that Lord Mandelson retained his Russian business links well after Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion of Crimea, the first offensive action against Ukraine in 2014 before the full scale invasion began in 2022.
The latest revelations, first revealed by The Guardian, come amid growing tensions over delays to the publication of the latest tranche of papers relating to the appointment of Lord Mandelson to the UK’s most important diplomatic role, which the government has been ordered by MPs to publish.
In January 2025, The Independent revealed that concerns over Lord Mandelson’s close business ties to China had led Donald Trump to consider rejecting his credentials to the US as the UK’s ambassador.
Later, in September last year, The Independent revealed that he had failed his security vetting because of concerns over those links.
Meanwhile, a row over the publication of the Mandelson files is set to continue next week. The Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) is set to meet to finalise what material it believes can be published without harming national security.
However, it is understood that the government is refusing to back down on efforts to redact extra material which could be embarrassing for Sir Keir Starmer, who appointed Lord Mandelson.
Sources have said that the committee will insist the government highlights the parts it has redacted without the committee’s permission, following concerns raised earlier by the committee, that it was not following the agreed criteria.
“The terms of the humble address in parliament [which forced the publication] only allows for the ISC to decide what cannot be published,” a source said.
“That means the government will be breaching the humble address if it continues down this path.”
A second tranche of papers not covered by security issues is still expected to be published next week. The government delayed publication until after 1 June because of the size of the material concerned.
When the the issue of the security vetting failure for Lord Mandelson remerged last month, Sir Keir claimed that he and Downing Street had only discovered the vetting failure that week.
But opposition parties questioned whether Sir Keir misled parliament on the issues, after the publication of exchanges between The Independent and Downing Street showed they had been contacted about the failed vetting seven months before.
The row prompted Sir Keir to sack the then-Foreign Office permanent secretary Sir Olly Robbins, claiming he had withheld the information on the security services’ concerns about Lord Mandelson.
The prime minister claimed that it was “unforgivable” and “staggering” that the senior civil servant did not tell ministers about the agency’s findings.
The Guardian has also claimed that United Kingdom Security Vetting (UKSV) also suggested Lord Mandelson had a very close relationship with a fourth individual, who is British, that could be compromising.
He was sacked as ambassador in September last year following further revelations of his close relationship with the late convicted paedophile and American financier Jeffrey Epstein.
However, his links with Epstein do not appear to have featured prominently in his security vetting process.
