Keir Starmer defended Peter Mandelson in the House of Commons two days after details of emails between the former ambassador to the US and Jeffrey Epstein were passed to Downing Street, according to reports. The prime minister sacked Mandelson on Thursday after emails were published revealing that he had told Epstein “your friends stay with you and love you” while the financier was facing jail for sex offences.
The Foreign Office received a media enquiry outlining details of the messages on Tuesday, which was passed to No 10, PA Media and the Times reported. The permanent undersecretary at the Foreign Office, Oliver Robbins, allegedly asked Mandelson about the veracity of the emails but did not receive a response until Wednesday afternoon, a government source told PA.
The prime minister is understood not to have been aware of the contents of the emails until Wednesday evening. By that time, he had told the Commons he had confidence in Mandelson during prime minister’s questions at midday. Kemi Badenoch accused Starmer and Labour MPs of “lying to the whole country about what they knew regarding Mandelson’s involvement with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein”.
Speaking on the Today programme, Labour MP Olivia Blake said the reports were “really embarrassing”. “Any operation that fails to tell a prime minister when something as substantial as those emails are presented to them clearly has deep failings,” she said. She added that Labour should consider whether Mandelson should continue to represent the party in the Lords.
Foreign Office minister Stephen Doughty told MPs on Thursday that Mandelson had not disclosed the extent of his friendship with Epstein at the time of his appointment. “The emails show that the depth and extent of Peter Mandelson’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein is materially different from that known at the time of his appointment,” he said. Mandelson was sacked “with immediate effect”.
Downing Street said on Friday that Starmer has “confidence in his top team” when asked about questions over the judgment of his chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney. Backbencher Clive Lewis publicly questioned Starmer’s leadership, telling the BBC the prime minister does not seem “up to the job”.
