Embattled British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s chief of staff resigned on Sunday, February 8, over the appointment of Peter Mandelson as ambassador to Washington despite links to US convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“After careful reflection, I have decided to resign from the government. The decision to appoint Peter Mandelson was wrong. He has damaged our party, our country and trust in politics itself,” Morgan McSweeney, Downing Street’s chief of staff, said in a statement. “I advised the prime minister to make that appointment and I take full responsibility for that advice,” he added.
The resignation came as the foreign ministry said it was reviewing an exit payment to Mandelson, who was sacked by the Labour premier last September over his friendship with the deceased Epstein.
Mandelson, a pivotal figure in British politics and the Labour Party for decades, received an estimated pay-out of between £38,750 and £55,000 after only seven months in the job, according to a report in the Sunday Times.
Documents released on January 30 by the US Justice Department appear to show that Mandelson allegedly leaked confidential UK government information to financier Epstein when he was a British minister, including during the 2008 financial crisis.
Mandelson, also a former European Union trade commissioner, stood down from parliament’s unelected upper chamber, the House of Lords, earlier this week.
Law firm Mishcon de Reya, representing Mandelson, said he “regrets, and will regret until to his dying day, that he believed Epstein’s lies about his criminality.” “Lord Mandelson did not discover the truth about Epstein until after his death in 2019,” said the statement. “He is profoundly sorry that powerless and vulnerable women and girls were not given the protection they deserved.”
‘Terrible mistake’
The revelation has placed intense pressure on Starmer and triggered a police investigation into Mandelson, 72, for alleged misconduct in a public office. The Foreign Office said in a statement it had launched a review into Mandelson’s severance payment “in light of further information that has now been revealed and the ongoing police investigation.”
Cabinet minister Pat McFadden earlier insisted Starmer should remain in office despite his “terrible mistake” in appointing Mandelson. The close Starmer ally told broadcasters the party should stick with the prime minister.
“He [Starmer] should be realistic and accept that this has been a terrible story, that this appointment was a terrible mistake,” McFadden, the Work and Pensions Secretary, told BBC television. He said the real blame lay “squarely with Peter Mandelson,” who put himself forward for the job despite knowing the extent of his relationship with Epstein.
Starmer’s deputy, David Lammy, became the first cabinet minister to appear to distance himself from the premier, according to a report in the Sunday Telegraph. The deputy prime minister had not been in favour of appointing Mandelson due to his known links to Epstein, the report quoted friends of Lammy as saying.
‘Starmer has to take responsibility’
Despite McSweeney’s departure, opposition leaders kept their focus on the prime minister. “Keir Starmer has to take responsibility for his own terrible decisions,” opposition leader Kemi Badenoch of the Conservative Party posted on X. “But he never does.”
“The Prime Minister can change his advisers all he likes, but the buck stops with him,” said Daisy Cooper, leader of the Liberal Democrats, the third party in parliament.
Noting that McSweeney had gone, Nigel Farage, leader of the hard-right Reform UK party said: “My money says Starmer won’t be far behind after Labour’s disaster in the elections this coming May.”