Peter Mandelson was fired as Britain’s ambassador to the United States on Thursday after his ties to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein became another unwelcome problem for the embattled Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Mandelson had been under mounting pressure over his relationship with Epstein after US lawmakers on Monday released a “birthday book,” compiled for Epstein’s 50th birthday in 2003, in which the veteran Labour party politician had penned a handwritten note describing Epstein as “my best pal.”
Despite the revelation, Starmer forcefully defended his ambassador on Wednesday, telling parliament that Mandelson had his “full confidence.”
Hours later, the scandal snowballed after Bloomberg published a trove of emails between Mandelson and Epstein, in which Mandelson expressed support for his friend and offered to discuss his infamous 2008 Florida case with his political contacts.
Epstein pleaded guilty to two state prostitution charges and served 13 months in prison after a controversial plea deal. But the emails obtained by Bloomberg showed that Mandelson continued to support Epstein after that conviction.
“I think the world of you and I feel hopeless and furious about what has happened,” Mandelson wrote. He gave Epstein advice, suggesting he fight back using techniques from Sun Tzu’s “Art of War.”
Announcing Mandelson’s withdrawal, Britain’s Foreign Office told CNN in a statement that the emails showed that “the depth and extent” of the now-ex-ambassador’s relationship with Epstein is “materially different from that known at the time of his appointment.”
In a letter to staff at the embassy following his dismissal, Mandelson described his role as ambassador as the ‘privilege of my life,’ the BBC reported.
“The circumstances surrounding the announcement today are ones which I deeply regret. I continue to feel utterly awful about my association with Epstein 20 years ago and the plight of his victims,” he said in the letter said, according to the BBC.
He said he had “no alternative” to accepting Starmer’s decision.
James Roscoe will be the interim ambassador to the US, having previously been the deputy head of mission at the embassy in Washington since July 2022.
The scandal surrounding Mandelson had created another huge political headache for the beleaguered Starmer, who faced questions about his judgment in appointing Mandelson when the ambassador’s friendship with Epstein was well known.
President Donald Trump shakes hands with Mandelson in the White House on May 8. – Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images
‘My best pal’
Mandelson – who now has been forced out of three senior government roles over separate scandals – for years batted away questions about his links to Epstein. Asked last year about his relationship with the sex offender, Mandelson said he regretted meeting him, but dismissed the question as a journalistic “obsession.”
But the allegations became harder to dismiss after Democrats in Congress released copies of Epstein’s so-called 50th “birthday book,” collated by Ghislaine Maxwell, his then-girlfriend, in 2003. Maxwell was convicted of sex trafficking in 2022 and is serving a 20-year sentence.
Among the book’s 238 pages is a handwritten note, interspersed with photographs of Mandelson and Epstein, which starts: “Once upon a time, an intelligent, sharp-witted man they call ‘mysterious’ parachuted into my life.”
Mandelson described spending “many hours” waiting for this man to turn up, meeting his “interesting” friends, and how this man would whisk him away to “one of his glorious homes,” next to a picture of an island.
“Wherever he is in the world, he remains my best pal,” wrote Mandelson.
Mandelson’s note to Epstein was interspersed with images of them together. – House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
In an interview Wednesday with The Sun, a British tabloid, Mandelson said he found those words “very embarrassing” to read, and said he feared more “very embarrassing” exchanges would soon emerge. He stressed that he wrote his message before Epstein was convicted in 2008.
“I regret very much that I fell for his lies. I fell and accepted assurances that he had given me about his indictment, his original criminal case in Florida,” Mandelson added.
The Foreign Office said that “Mandelson’s suggestion that Jeffrey Epstein’s first conviction was wrongful and should be challenged is new information.”
“In light of that, and mindful of the victims of Epstein’s crimes, he has been withdrawn as Ambassador with immediate effect,” it said.
Question of judgment
Mandelson, widely known in political circles as the “Prince of Darkness” for his Machiavellian skills, became Labour’s director of communications in the 1980s. He helped to turn the party into a slick, global-facing, capital-friendly project known as “New Labour” that eventually won a landslide election in 1997 under Tony Blair.
“We are not communists, we are New Labour,” he famously told a gathering of corporate Americans the following year. “We are intensely relaxed about people getting rich, as long as they pay their taxes.”
But critics say Mandelson himself has long been too relaxed about his own relations with the filthy rich. He resigned as a government minister in 1998 for not declaring a loan he obtained from a millionaire colleague. He returned to government the next year, but resigned again in 2001 over claims he used his position to influence a British passport application from a wealthy donor.
Mandelson then left Westminster for Brussels, becoming the European commissioner for trade from 2004 to 2008. He then returned to government for a third time under Prime Minister Gordon Brown, before taking to the private sector after Labour lost the 2010 general election.
When Starmer won a landslide election last July, he initially left Karen Pierce in place as Britain’s ambassador to the US. But after Donald Trump won a second term as US president in November, Starmer swapped what was considered a steady set of hands for a political heavyweight – a maverick able to maneuver in Trump’s Washington.
Initially, his appointment reaped rewards. Mandelson, whose knowledge of trade issues was a factor in his appointment, played a critical role in negotiating the US-UK trade deal.
Standing alongside Trump in the Oval Office on the day that deal was signed in May, the president praised Mandelson’s “beautiful” accent. “I’d like to have that accent too,” Trump said.
“Thank you,” Mandelson replied. “My mother would be proud.”
But despite the initial bonhomie, the decision to appoint Mandelson has backfired on Starmer spectacularly. The prime minister has now lost two senior officials in a week, after his deputy, Angela Rayner, resigned Friday over her failure to pay enough property tax.
Mandelson’s withdrawal comes just days before Starmer is set to welcome Trump to the UK for a state visit, which will involve a banquet at Windsor Castle with King Charles III.
Starmer’s firing of Mandelson over his links to Epstein may make that visit more uncomfortable, given that Trump is embroiled in his own scandal over his links to the convicted sex offender.
CNN’s Kevin Liptak and Caitlin Danaher contributed reporting.
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