Keir Starmer defended Peter Mandelson in the House of Commons two days after Downing Street received details of damning emails between the former ambassador and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, according to reports. The prime minister sacked Mandelson on Thursday after the emails were published, revealing that Mandelson 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 the emails on Tuesday, which was passed to No 10, PA Media and the Times reported. Oliver Robbins, the permanent undersecretary at the Foreign Office, allegedly asked Mandelson about the veracity of the emails but did not receive a response until Wednesday afternoon. The prime minister is understood not to have been aware of the contents until Wednesday evening, after he had told the Commons he had confidence in Mandelson during PMQs at midday.
Conservative leader 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”. She wrote on X: “If No 10 had those emails for 48 hours before acting, it means he lied at PMQs and ministers lied again about new additional information.”
Backbench Labour MP Olivia Blake described the reports as “really embarrassing”, saying: “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 suggested whoever is gatekeeping information to the prime minister “needs to stop”. 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, and that his suggestion that Epstein’s first conviction was wrongful was “new information”.
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, who reportedly lobbied for Mandelson’s appointment. Backbencher Clive Lewis publicly questioned Starmer’s leadership, telling the BBC the prime minister does not seem “up to the job”.
