Ex-Foreign Office chief Olly Robbins believed in talks over top security role

The Foreign Office chief who lost his job over the Peter Mandelson vetting scandal is in discussions with Andy Burnham’s team about taking on a security-related role under the likely new prime minister, the Guardian understands. Olly Robbins has had “early exploratory talks” with senior advisers to the newly elected Makerfield MP over a post in his putative Downing Street operation, and insiders suggested he could be appointed national security adviser. It would mark a dramatic and controversial return by Robbins to the top of government less than three months after he was sacked by Keir Starmer following the Guardian’s disclosure that he had overturned a recommendation from UK Security Vetting to deny clearance for Mandelson. The disclosure is likely to ring alarm bells with senior Labour figures, including some of those currently in No 10, after he lost the confidence of Starmer and Yvette Cooper, the foreign secretary, due to his handling of the vetting of Mandelson, who was sacked over the extent of his links to the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Questions remain about the defence Robbins mounted, both of himself and the system through which the national security establishment vets people, and the lack of mitigations put in place to get around the security concerns. …