UK PM Starmer Admits He Knew Epstein Ties Before Appointing Mandelson

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is reeling from a political firestorm after admitting he knew about Jeffrey Epstein’s ties to Lord Peter Mandelson before appointing him as Britain’s ambassador to the United States one of the country’s most powerful diplomatic positions.

The scandal has rapidly spiraled into a full-blown crisis of trust, with demands for public inquiries, leaked internal documents, and even members of Starmer’s own party turning against him.

At Prime Minister’s Questions this week, Starmer responded to Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch by confirming that official vetting did flag Mandelson’s ongoing relationship with Epstein, even after Epstein’s 2008 conviction for child sex offenses.

“Yes it did,” Starmer admitted, saying “various questions were put to him” during the selection process.

Yet Starmer still gave him the job.

The PM now claims he didn’t realize the “depth and extent” of Mandelson’s involvement despite publicly available reports that Mandelson had stayed at Epstein’s properties even after the conviction. Worse, new DOJ-linked documents reportedly show Mandelson sharing market-sensitive information with Epstein during the 2008 financial crisis, while serving as Gordon Brown’s business secretary.

When that material surfaced in 2025, Starmer finally dismissed Mandelson but by then, the damage was done.

“Mandelson betrayed our country, our Parliament, and my party,” Starmer declared this week, attempting to draw a line.

But the outrage has only intensified. Even former Labour Deputy Leader Angela Rayner pushed back against Starmer’s attempt to block disclosure of vetting documents under vague “national security” justifications.

That strategy backfired. Under internal pressure, Starmer was forced to cede oversight to Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee, a move widely seen as an effort to salvage credibility and avoid rebellion on his back benches.

The Conservative Party has tabled a humble address motion, a rare but powerful parliamentary mechanism, demanding full release of government records, vetting memos, and communications between Starmer’s Chief of Staff Morgan McSweeney a longtime Mandelson ally and the PM’s office. McSweeney now finds himself under intense scrutiny.

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey went further, calling for a full public inquiry and demanding answers as to whether Epstein’s victims were even considered when the Labour government made its appointment.

Mandelson has now resigned from the Labour Party, stepped down from the House of Lords, and been stripped of his Privy Council status with the consent of King Charles. Starmer is drafting legislation to prevent him from retaining his peerage title.

Mandelson’s defense? That he consulted Epstein’s “financial expertise” for the good of the country.

Let that sink in: one of the most powerful figures in the British government was advising with a convicted pedophile during a global financial crisis and no one in the Labour leadership saw a problem until they were publicly embarrassed years later.

Starmer’s attempt to downplay his knowledge won’t wash. He knew, and still proceeded. And now, the British public knows that their Prime Minister ignored his own government’s warnings, putting elite loyalty above national integrity.

As pressure mounts and documents are set to be released, it’s not just Mandelson on trial it’s the entire system of elite impunity that protected him.

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