The Prime Minister seems to have misled Parliament and should seek an audience with the King “at the earliest opportunity”, Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg has said
He said on GB News: “Today, the nation is in a state. The Prime Minister seems to have misled Parliament.
“Listen to this…full due process has been followed, so said the Prime Minister to the House of Commons. The ministerial code, a document that is authorised, issued and is in the name of the Prime Minister, says that it is of paramount importance that ministers give accurate and truthful information to Parliament, correcting any inadvertent error at the earliest opportunity.
“Ministers who knowingly mislead Parliament will be expected to offer their resignation to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister can’t offer himself his resignation. His has to go to the King. That’s why I’m saying he should seek an audience of His Majesty at the earliest opportunity.
“Why does this matter so much? Well, look at what has happened. Lord Mandelson, Peter Mandelson, was appointed Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the United States of America, one of, if not the most sensitive posts outside ministerial office in this country, one that has to be aware of all our deepest secrets, knows about the Trident program, knows about the five eyes, which we, along with America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, use to gather information on the world, somebody at the heart of the special relationship, the most important security relationship, knowing all sorts of secrets in the world.
“That man needs to be suitable, capable and able to carry out that role, to fulfil that job. This man turned out to be one that His Majesty’s government’s own vetting process, own developed vetting process, said was not fit to carry out that role, and the government ignored it, overruled it, declined to accept it, and then lied.
“You may say they lied because they were incompetent. They didn’t know they were ignorant, but what sort of a government is it that is incapable of knowing whether developed vetting for such a sensitive post has been approved or not?
“Bear in mind developed vetting almost never fails, and this decision, apparently, according to Number 10 Downing Street, wasn’t made by any minister at all. No minister knew. Nobody was there. Nobody heard a word. See no evil, say no evil, etc. But can that possibly be true? Because Sir Oliver Robbins, the great panjandrum of the Foreign Office, said to a select committee only recently that these decisions, when they were the most senior and sensitive roles, would have a political input.
“So how come the government didn’t know? Were they ignorant? Were they stupid? Were they lazy, or were they, frankly, just dishonest, and think of Sir Keir’s own standards, what he said to Boris Johnson about a piece of cake, how hysterical he became about Boris Johnson saying to the House of Commons what he had been told by civil servants in good faith that the rules were followed.
“What he said about Boris Johnson over things Johnson couldn’t possibly have known about things that happened when he, Johnson, was in a different county, Starmer maintained that that was Boris Johnson’s responsibility. Now he, Sir Keir Starmer himself, Mr Piety himself, Mr Process himself, has been bitten by process, and a process that he seems to have misled Parliament about, and possibly even Lord Mandelson.
“Because although Lord Mandelson himself has declined to comment, a friend of the peer has told GB News that Peter had no knowledge of this matter. It’s the first he’s heard of it. No one at any level raised or explored the subject with him following the vetting interview process, and no issue has been raised with him since.
“So Starmer, who accused Mandelson of lying during the process, is the one who’s turned out to lie himself.”