Keir Starmer’s leadership of the Labour party and his position as Prime Minister have been on a knife edge for some time. After being elected in July 2024 with a landslide victory in the Commons, albeit on a mere one third of the popular vote, Labour MPs were looking forward to settling down to a decade or more in government. Yet within a few weeks, the signs of Labour’s future downward trajectory were becoming clear.
First there was Freebie Gate: Starmer’s addiction to getting free stuff from Labour’s well heeled donors. Then the missteps came thick and fast, too many to list again. It was as though Starmer was setting out deliberately to alienate Labour’s traditional voting base while pandering to the far right on immigration, a quixotic chase after voters who would never support Labour which only succeeded in legitimising and mainstreaming far right policies and talking points. We are now at the point where more people have bought tickets to see the Melania Trump documentary than have full confidence in Keir Starmer’s leadership.
Things were already looking bad for Starmer when he took the decision to block the attempt of the Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham to return to the House of Commons. His MPs are in despair as the party’s polling ratings tank and Labour faces humiliating defeats in the Scottish, Welsh, and English local elections due in May. The expected loss of Wales, where Labour has reigned supreme since the 1920s would be a particularly bitter pill for Labour to swallow, the blame will be laid squarely at Starmer’s door.
But it all exploded over the past few days when a fresh release of Epstein files, with those referring to Donald Trump carefully weeded out – an estimated 2 million documents have still not been released – uncovered highly damaging information about Labour grandee Peter Mandelson, a close ally of Starmer’s chief of staff Morgan McSweeney. McSweeney is very much Mandelson’s protege and was instrumental in persuading Starmer to appoint Mandelson as the UK Ambassador to the USA and as his Trump whisperer.
Mandelson was appointed to this high profile and sensitive position despite serial scandals about his conduct during previous Labour administrations. Mandelson is attracted to the super rich like a fly to a cow pat and has shown himself more than willing to leverage his government contacts in order to do favours for the wealthy friends who give him access to a luxury lifestyle way above his paygrade. In 1996 Mandelson bought an expensive home in the exclusive Notting Hill area of London with an interest free loan from Labour MP and aerospace CEO Geoffrey Robinson, whose business dealings were subject to an inquiry by Mandelson’s department when Mandelson was appointed Secretary of State for Trade and Industry on 27 July 1998. Mandelson then refused to recuse himself from an inquiry into the misuse of pension funds by Robert Maxwell, who was a business associate of Robinson. The resultant scandal was the first time that Mandelson would be forced to resign in disgrace. It would not be the last.
In 2001, when Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Mandelson was forced to resign from the government a second time after being accused of abusing his position to secure British citizenship for billionaire Indian businessman Srichand Hinduja.
Mandelson was then appointed as the UK’s European Commissioner, where he held the trade portfolio. While holding this position he was accused in 2005 of inappropriate links to Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft, whose company was at the time the centre of a major EU investigation into its trading practices. Despite this, Mandelson spent time on Allen’s yacht and holidayed with the billionaire.
Holidaying on the yachts of billionaires whose business practices are under investigation by governments of which he is a part is very much a habit of Mandelson’s. He is known to have associated with a number of controversial European and Russian billionaires.
In 2008 Mandelson was given a peerage by Gordon Brown and appointed Business Secretary. While in this post, Mandelson pressed for tough measures against digital piracy – ie downloading TV shows and movies without paying for them – after holidaying with DreamWorks co-founder David Geffen at the Rothschild family villa on the Greek island of Corfu.
Mandelson has slithered from one scandal to another throughout his political career, the one constant being his schmoozing with the super rich for whom he’s eager to do favours.
So it’s scarcely surprising that he’d gravitate to Jeffrey Epstein, with whom Mandelson had maintained a friendship since at least 2002, a friendship which continued long after Epstein’s first conviction for sexual offences involving a minor in 2008. Mandelson remained in contact with Epstein until at least 2016. In 2009 Mandelson advised Epstein on how the investment bank J P Morgan might lobby the government on plans for a tax on bankers’ bonuses. Mandelson was part of the government at the time. The documents released recently also show that Epstein made two large payments to Mandelson and his husband.
It has long been known that Mandelson stayed in Epstein’s New York home while Epstein was in prison for sex offences. Mandelson also lobbied the US government in March 2010, in an attempt to water down proposed restrictions on US bank trading activities, on behalf of Epstein and Morgan J P Morgan CEO of Capital Management, Jes Staley. Staley, a former CEO of Barclay’s Bank, has been accused of providing the banking facilities which Epstein used to fund his networks of abuse and human trafficking.
Starmer knew about Mandelson’s links to Epstein when he appointed him as British Ambassador to the USA in December 2024. These links had been common knowledge in Labour circles for many years. Despite this, Starmer still saw fit to appoint Mandelson to a high profile and sensitive post which is normally given to an experienced diplomat, not to the likes of Mandelson, a man who is willing to overlook any sin as long as it’s committed by someone who is obscenely wealthy. That’s very on brand for Starmer’s Labour party. As Freebie Gate demonstrated, Starmer himself is happy to schmooze with the rich in return for expensive gifts.
Mandelson’s appointment casts serious questions on the judgement of Keir Starmer, who was forced to admit at PMQs this week that he knew about Mandelson’s links to Epstein when he appointed him ambassador. At that moment, Starmer lost control of the Labour party. His appointment of Mandelson in full knowledge of Mandelson’s sleazy past and his ties to Epstein tells you all you need to know about the moral vacuum at the heart of the Labour party. Labour MPs are reportedly in despair, and rebelled against the Government’s attempts to block the release of government documents in which the appointment was discussed. The mood on Labour benches is reportedly sulphurous. One former Labour minister told The Guardian: “We were meant to be the ones who didn’t do this stuff. It’s time for a fresh start, the sooner the better.”
Pressure is mounting for Starmer to face a confidence vote. This story is not going away, piling on fresh damage to Labour as it gears up for May’s elections.
On Thursday, attempting to save his political skin, Starmer was forced to deliver a humiliating apology to Epstein’s victims. Starmer has claimed Mandelson lied repeatedly about the extent of his ties to Epstein. Too little, too late?
Starmer’s one big promise when he was elected in July 2024 was change, change from the chaos and sleaze of the Tories. How’s that working out for him now?
