Further revelations about what has been called potentially criminal conduct of the UK’s former ambassador to Washington in the Epstein emails has seen the British Prime Minister call for Peter Mandelson to quit the UK Parliament and renounce his title.
British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said the man he hand-picked to take one of the highest-profile UK government jobs should now be removed from Parliament, where he sits in the upper revising chamber the House of Lords, and be stripped of his title.
A spokesman for the Prime Minister made it clear the Prime Minister’s position is that these are jobs for someone else to do, despite the fact the government is already expelling 92 other peers from the House of Lords. Top Westminster-watcher blog Guido Fawkes has already stated this buck-passing is to get the Prime Minister out of the politically embarrassing position of having to act himself to purge a veteran political operator who was until recently a top ally and advisor to Starmer himself.
Downing Street said, nevertheless, that the Prime Minister had asked “urgently” for investigations into Mandelson’s contact with Epstein during his time as a government minister during the past governments of Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
Mandelson, whose family history with politics goes back to the earliest left-wing governments in Britain, was picked for the role despite having a history of making intemperate remarks against U.S. President Donald Trump, including calling him a “”little short of a white nationalist”, a “reckless, and a “danger to the world”. Arriving in Washington in December 2024, Mandelson renounced his previous views and immediately threw himself into charming the Trump White House.
Lord Mandelson, long known in the UK as the “Prince of Darkness” for his consummate political and media-handling skills, was plunged further into disgrace over the weekend with the release of a new tranche of Jeffrey Epstein emails. Among affairs allegedly revealed within the documents were that Mandelson allegedly forwarded confidential briefings while he was Business Secretary to Epstein, had allegedly assisted Epstein associates in lobbying against his own government, and had allegedly received considerable sums of cash from Epstein.
The revealed emails suggest Mandelson remained in contact even after Epstein was convicted of a child sex offence and he was at first extremely tetchy about being asked about it. Last year, as the first revelations were coming out, Mandelson dismissed the story as an “obsession” of journalists and added “frankly you can all fuck off. OK?”.
Mandelson was more contrite later and claimed he was not aware of any wrongdoing by Epstein and said he now regretted their friendship.
Also among the files revealed this weekend was an image of Mandelson in a state of undress. Even at this late stage and with so much apparently revealed, it was reported Mandelson had attempted to downplay the matter, telling Sky News through a spokesman yesterday of the photograph that: “No one can say who or where the photo was taken. Lord Mandelson has absolutely no idea or indeed whether it has any connection to Epstein at all.”
Yet today, the same broadcaster claims to have geo-located the image to Epstein’s Paris apartment using the distinctive interior decoration of the room and artistic iron railings visible outside.
The Daily Telegraph reports that if it is proven that Mandelson passed confidential government documents that he had access to as a minister of the British government to Epstein, it could be a criminal offence. Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, under whose leadership this is alleged to have happened, said today that he’s written to to the government to request an inquiry into the claimed leaks.
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