Starmer premiership in crisis after day of drama in Parliament over Mandelson’s Epstein ties

LONDON – Mr Keir Starmer is not the first Labour prime minister to be plunged into crisis by Mr Peter Mandelson
. It is not even the first time it has happened to Mr Starmer.

The difference now is that members of his own party are starting to count the days of his leadership.

Labour MPs variously described the mood in the governing party as febrile and mutinous, requesting – like others interviewed for this article – anonymity to speak freely. One minister said Starmer remains in office only because his best-placed rivals have reasons to hold back from a leadership challenge.

The furore seemed certain to distract from Mr Starmer’s latest effort to refocus the discussion on issues more resonant with voters. The Prime Minister was due to give a speech about patriotism and community pride on Feb 5 while unveiling funding designed to revitalise the country’s most deprived areas.

Questions, however, will surely focus on the fallout from one of Mr Starmer’s worst days yet in Parliament.

The drama began during a parliamentary session in which Mr Starmer struggled to parry questions from Conservative opposition leader Kemi Badenoch.

She asked what he knew about the relationship between the late paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein and Mr Mandelson, the former Labour power broker whom Mr Starmer had brought back into a plum diplomatic role shortly after winning election 18 months ago.

The Prime Minister was forced to acknowledge that the material used to vet Mr Mandelson for the post of ambassador to the US did contain details of his relationship with Epstein.

A tranche of e-mails freshly released by the US Department of Justice showed those ties remained close even after the financier pleaded guilty to child sex-trafficking charges in 2008.

One minister who sat close to Mr Starmer said the British leader’s hands were trembling as he addressed the House of Commons
.

Ms Badenoch zeroed in on Mr Starmer’s powerful chief of staff, Mr Morgan McSweeney, who had advocated Mr Mandelson’s appointment as the government sought someone skilled in realpolitik to manage US President Donald Trump’s return to the White House.

Some Labour MPs described Mr McSweeney’s position as untenable and speculated that the only reason Mr Starmer had not fired him was that he realised doing so could hasten his own downfall.

“The Prime Minister chose to inject Mandelson’s poison into the heart of his government on the advice of Morgan McSweeney,” Ms Badenoch said.

Mr Starmer said “of course” he continued to have confidence in Mr McSweeney, whom he described as an essential part of his team.

The dispute about Mr Mandelson’s vetting picked up steam when members of Mr Starmer’s own Labour Party allied with Conservatives to seek the release of papers relating to Mr Mandelson’s appointment.

That was an attempt to override the broad carve-outs the Prime Minister had sought for documents concerning national security and international relations.

With several Labour MPs standing in the Commons to say they could not back Mr Starmer, the government was forced to concede that sensitive documents would instead be reviewed by the cross-party Intelligence and Security Committee.

The scandal arrives as Mr Starmer battles record-low popularity ratings. On the horizon are May local elections in which the government is predicted to do badly against an ascendant Reform UK, which could also prove a vulnerable moment for a prime minister losing the support of his backbenchers. 

Some 95 per cent of Britons were aware of Mr Mandelson’s appearance in the Epstein files
, polling by YouGov showed on Feb 4. Almost half said they were following the story closely.

“In situations like this, change can go from unlikely to inevitable very rapidly indeed,” said Professor of political science Rob Ford at the University of Manchester. 

It will come as a relief for Mr Starmer that Mr Wes Streeting, one of his best-placed rivals, is a close Mandelson ally. That makes it hard for him to resign in disgust over the Premier’s judgment in keeping Mr Mandelson close, two senior Labour officials said.

Others who command support of broad sections of the party – Mr Andy Burnham, Mr Ed Miliband and Ms Angela Rayner – have reasons of their own to delay.

Mr Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, was recently blocked by Mr Starmer from standing for the parliamentary seat he would need to mount a leadership challenge.

Ms Rayner’s tax affairs are still unresolved after she resigned as deputy prime minister over them in September. And Mr Miliband, the Energy Secretary, has always publicly professed his loyalty to the Premier after trying and failing to win a general election himself.

Many on the left of the party said they had warned Mr Starmer that rehabilitating Mr Mandelson would be a bad decision. Their fury makes a leadership challenge more probable than it was on Feb 3, as the gilt curve steepened and the pound weakened against the euro through the afternoon.

Ms Rayner’s influence was on display when she stood up to pressure the government to run disclosures through the security committee. A Labour official said she had made clear she was a serious player ahead of any leadership contest.

The Metropolitan Police entered the fray in an evening statement, saying they had asked the government “not to release certain documents at this time”, owing to their ongoing investigation into Mr Mandelson. The police said on Feb 3 that they would be investigating the former ambassador’s conduct in public office.

Despite that eleventh-hour intervention, Mr Starmer’s appointment of a man who, in his own words, “betrayed our country”, “lied repeatedly” and was “responsible for a litany of deceit”, is forcing one of the most dangerous moments of his premiership yet. BLOOMBERG