United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer has admitted he was wrong to appoint Peter Mandelson as ambassador to Washington, but rejected mounting calls to resign.

Starmer told the UK Parliament on Monday that, while the appointment was a mistake, he would have withdrawn the decision had he known the Foreign Office had overruled security officials’ recommendations not to give the job to Mandelson, whose friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was long known.

The British leader again rejected calls for his resignation over the botched vetting process. Those calls have mounted as the issue has developed into a major scandal.

The premier denied misleading parliament and placed the blame squarely on the shoulders of the Foreign Office, saying that it beggared belief that officials “saw fit to withhold this information from the most senior ministers in our system”.

“That is not how the vast majority of people in this country expect politics, government or accountability to work,” Starmer said, adding that it was “frankly staggering” he had not been told about Mandelson’s failure to gain security clearance, to the sound of jeers from opposition lawmakers.

“It doesn’t appear that he asked any questions at all. Why? Because he didn’t want to know,” Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch said.