Labour MPs have urged Keir Starmer to sack Peter Mandelson over his links to convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
The UK’s ambassador to Washington has admitted there are more “embarrassing” details to come about him and his “best pal” Epstein, who died in 2019. However, Labour MPs have pressed the PM to sack Mandelson, arguing that he should never have been appointed and demanding his removal before more revelations emerge.
However, Sir Keir has defended the Labour peer, saying he has “full confidence in him, and he is playing an important role in the UK-US relationship”.
On Wednesday, the PM was questioned on whether he knew that Mandelson, when business secretary in 2010, had reportedly allowed Epstein to aid in brokering the sale of a UK government-owned business to a US bank, just months after the financier had been released from jail for procuring a child for prostitution and soliciting a prostitute.
It came after a Telegraph investigation that revealed Lord Mandelson worked with Epstein on a £1bn business deal after his conviction for child sex offences.
Andy McDonald, Labour MP for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East, said: “I fail to see how our ambassador to the US can possibly continue in post.
“That he continued to engage with the paedophile Epstein after he was indicted, is simply staggering. If it’s right that in addition he was directly involved in business activity to the advantage of Epstein while he was business secretary, then that raises huge issues. If true it is not only unacceptable, it raises questions about whether he complied with the ministerial code.”
“The Prime Minister has said much about improving standards in public life and I trust he will take advice from the ethics adviser or other such independent person,” he said.
“It seems clear from the information already in the public domain and accepted as being accurate by Peter Mandelson himself, that his time as our ambassador to the US is up.
“Either he does the right thing by stepping down and saves the Prime Minister and the country any further embarrassment. If he does not, he should be fired.”
Kim Johnson, the MP for Liverpool Riverside, said: “As much as [Mandelson] says on radio that he regrets it, the fact is that he called him his ‘best pal’ in his birthday card.
“That suggests to me a very strong relationship because who sends cards with those comments on? He should never have got it in the first place.”
Meanwhile, Bell Ribeiro-Addy, a Left-wing challenger for the Labour deputy leadership, told The i Paper: “There should definitely be an investigation into it because there will be a huge amount of concern and if the outcome is that he should resign, he should.”
In an interview with The Sun this week, Mandelson said: “I have no doubt at all that there’s a lot of traffic, correspondence, exchanges, emails between us.
“And we know those are going to surface, we know they’re going to come out, we know they’re going to be very embarrassing and we know that I am going profoundly to regret ever having met him and been introduced to him in the first place.
“But I can’t rewrite history. What I can do is express my profound sympathy for those who have been trafficked by him and secondly I can accept, yes I can accept, that I continued my association with him for too long.”
At PMQs, Starmer said: “Let me start by saying the victims of Epstein are at the forefront of our minds. He was a despicable criminal who committed the most heinous crimes and destroyed the lives of so many women and girls.
“The ambassador has repeatedly expressed his deep regret for his association with him. He is right to do so. I have confidence in him, and he is playing an important role in the UK-US relationship.”
He added: “Full due process was followed during this appointment, as it is with all ambassadors. The ambassador has repeatedly expressed his deep regret, he is right to do so, he’s now playing an important part in the US-UK relationship.”