“All we want is the truth,” MP Rachael Maskell told POLITICO. “Now a different account of Mr. Mandelson’s security clearance has been brought to light we need accountability as to why we were provided a different version of events.”
A highly loyal MP, granted anonymity to discuss internal party matters, said Thursday night: “This is bad, very, very bad. There are so many factors, I don’t know if it will be the end, but it definitely could be.”
Robbins’ rocky path
The departure of Robbins is the latest twist in a Whitehall career that has seen the senior official — once marked out as a future head of the country’s civil service — take repeated political flak.
Robbins served as chief Brexit negotiator during the doomed premiership of Theresa May. As talks with Brussels appeared to be steering the U.K. into a compromise deal, he found himself pilloried as they bogeyman of hardline Tory MPs and newspapers, earning the moniker “the PM’s Rasputin” in one Times article.
When May was finally ousted in 2019, to be replaced by Boris Johnson, Robbins left government too.
He went on to roles at Goldman Sachs and then the Hakluyt advisory service. His civil service return came in 2025 as head of the Foreign Office under Starmer’s Labour government.