Kemi Badenoch calls for Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to resign

Today [Friday 17^th April 2026] Kemi Badenoch MP, Leader of the Conservative Party, calls for the Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to resign for misleading parliament.

Please see the full text of the speech below:

Checked against delivery

Keir Starmer's position is untenable.

The Prime Minister is putting his own interest before the national interest. He has misled Parliament and he has misled the country on a matter of national security. Nothing is more serious. He isn't fit to govern.

For months he has been telling the country a complete untruth.

That Peter Mandelson's appointment as our ambassador was down to a failure of vetting.

We now know something very simple it wasn't the vetting process that failed, Mandelson failed the vetting.

Despite that, despite it being known that his appointment would pose a risk to national security somehow he was appointed anyway.

Someone pushed that appointment through.

The Prime Minister is now asking us to believe that no one in government thought to tell him or his team that Mandelson had failed vetting that the first he heard of it was on Tuesday night.

That is preposterous. He is taking the public for fools.

We know that No 10 was told that Mandelson had failed his vetting because journalists told them in September last year.

This leaves us with two possibilities either the Prime Minister is lying or he is so incompetent that he is unfit to run the country.

Either way his position is untenable.

As this scandal has unravelled, he has sought to pin the blame on everyone but himself.

He has blamed the security services.

He has sacked his chief of staff.

He has sacked the Cabinet Secretary.

He has now sacked, Olly Robbins, the Permanent Secretary of the Foreign Office.

All this from a man who once said: “I will carry the can for the mistakes of any organisation I lead”.

The reality is he is undermining the very fabric that underpins government.

He likes to present himself as a man of spotless integrity.  This is a Prime Minister who spent his entire time in opposition telling people that he was whiter than white.

Telling the country that the rules mattered, that standards mattered, that misleading Parliament mattered.

But who once in office, has repeatedly put his own self-interest above the national interest. Who has tried to cling on to his job whatever the cost.

He is so blinded by faith in his own righteousness that he cannot see what everyone else in this country can see.

That this is a national disgrace the buck stops with him and the only decent response is to resign.

Can you imagine what he would think about this national security breach if this was anyone else?

Do you think he would say “oh no fair enough”.

Or do you think he would say it is your job to know whether or not Peter Mandelson failed his vetting.

It is your job not to appoint people who pose a risk to this country to the highest roles in our diplomatic service.

It is your job not to repeatedly mislead Parliament.

It is my job as Leader of the Opposition to hold the Prime Minister to account.

He cannot deny that he has recklessly misled the House.

He cannot deny that this is his unforgivable failure.

How could the former Chief Prosecutor not have asked basic questions about what went wrong in this appointment?

He cannot hide behind the line of ‘Don't blame me, I'm just the Prime Minister'.

He said it himself, “If you mislead Parliament, you must resign.” Those were his standards in opposition, they must be his standards now.

The fact is, none of this would have come to light without the work of the Conservatives in opposition.

While Nigel Farage was calling Mandelson a “good choice” as Ambassador, Conservatives MPs, like Iain Duncan-Smith, were raising concerns.

I asked the Prime Minister about Mandelson's vetting all the way back at PMQs in September.

It was the Conservatives who stopped the government from brushing this under the carpet with Urgent Question after Urgent Question in Parliament.

It was the Conservatives who had to drag the government through a Humble Address to get the Mandelson files to be released.

It's even being reported this week that the government was considering hiding the fact that Mandelson failed the vetting from the release of the files.

Every time they have come up with a new excuse, it has left us with more questions than answers.

The stench of cover up is now overwhelming.

This scandal is unfolding at a time when Britain is facing serious challenges at home and abroad.

The Prime Minister has just lost the head of the Foreign Office at a time of crisis in the Middle East.

Britain has been exposed as militarily unprepared, and we have former Labour Defence Ministers pleading with the Government to act on our national security.

And yet we have a government, distracted by its own scandal.

A Prime Minister who thinks that sitting on the fence makes him a military genius.

Whose every decision makes the people of this country poorer.

The drip, drip, drip of revelations is doing real damage.

It damages trust in government.

It damages trust in our institutions.

And it damages Britain's standing abroad.

Because our allies are not fools either.

They can see a Prime Minister more interested in saving himself than serving the country.

And people at home can see it too.

He is now so discredited in the eyes of the nation, that he cannot hope to lead Britain through any of this.

The excuse that we need this man because it is a time of crisis doesn't wash.

If he has lied to us about this, what else has he lied about?

If he has been so incompetent about managing a simple appointment, what else has he been incompetent about?

If he hasn't asked questions about this, what else has he not asked questions about?

Asking the country to keep this man in place to save face for the Labour Party is the wrong choice.

The Prime Minister said this morning that he is 'furious' that he was not told about the failed vetting.

Let me tell him who should be furious,

The countless people he has thrown under the bus to save his own skin.

The ministers sent out onto the media for months to lie on his behalf.

The Labour MPs who have been made to look like crooks to their constituents.

He has no right to be furious.

It is Parliament and the country who should be furious, not him.

The government must now come clean.

First, we know that journalists had told No10 in September about the failure of vetting and No10 officials did not deny those claims.

The Prime Minister said this morning that no one in No 10 knew. That is simply not correct.

Is the Prime Minister really saying no one in No10 knew or they knew and didn't tell him? And if so, does this not demonstrate that Keir Starmer is not in control of his own office?

Secondly, I am demanding the government publish all documents related to the appointment of Peter Mandelson by the end of next week. There can be no more cover up, no more excuses, no more delays.

Thirdly, the country has a right to know why Peter Mandelson failed the vetting. It is immensely serious that the Prime Minister appointed someone as an Ambassador who failed vetting. What dangers did he exposed our country to? We have a right to know.

And finally, Keir Starmer needs to take responsibility.

This scandal is not ending.

Every week brings another revelation, another contradiction, another excuse.

He has run out of people to sack.

He has run out of places to hide.

He has run out of authority.

The buck stops with him.

His position is untenable.

And he must go.