On Thursday morning in London, shortly before 8pm in Australia AEST, the government announced that Mandelson would be recalled from his post in Washington, DC.
“In light of the additional information in emails written by Peter Mandelson, the prime minister has asked the foreign secretary to withdraw him as ambassador,” the Foreign Office said.
US President Donald Trump and Peter Mandelson in the Oval Office. Credit: Bloomberg
“The emails show that the depth and extent of Peter Mandelson’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein is materially different from that known at the time of his appointment.
“In particular Peter 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 In light of that, and mindful of the victims of Epstein’s crimes, he has been withdrawn as ambassador with immediate effect.”
Everyone knew that Mandelson had been close to Epstein – and yet Starmer appointed him anyway. This week, however, emails and other documents have emerged to show that Mandelson kept the friendship long after he should have cut all ties.
One photograph shows Mandelson in a white bathrobe with Epstein, understood to be on the disgraced financier’s private island in the Caribbean.
There’s also a message from Mandelson in the infamous “birthday book” that has also caught Trump in the renewed scandal. As a Labour cabinet minister in 2003, Mandelson gushed about the “mysterious” Epstein in the gift presented on his 50th birthday. “Whenever he is in the world, he remains my best pal!” he wrote, with a drawing of Epstein under a parachute. He added a description of Epstein’s friends: “yum, yum.” This was revealed on Monday night.
One of Epstein’s housekeepers, Cathy Alexander, told The Telegraph this week that Mandelson had stayed on Epstein’s island with his long-term partner Reinaldo Avila da Silva. The pair met in 1996 and married in 2023.
Some of the revelations have highlighted known facts about Mandelson’s close ties with Epstein before the financier went to prison in 2008. Prosecutors planned to take Epstein to trial on a range of sex charges with a maximum sentence of 10 years, but Epstein pleaded guilty to lesser state charges and served about 18 months. A decade later, he faced further charges, and died in a Manhattan jail in 2019.
But the scale of Mandelson’s help for his friend has shaken British politics. The Telegraph revealed this week that Mandelson had helped Epstein arrange a deal for JP Morgan – the investment bank that counted Epstein as a lucrative client – to buy a commodities trader owned by the Royal Bank of Scotland.
Mandelson expressed regret about his association with Epstein in interviews this week to control the political damage, but he also acknowledged that more might emerge about their past.
“I feel a tremendous sense of regret not only that I met him in the first place, but that I continued the association and I took at face value the lies that he fed me and many others,” he told The Sun.
Starmer defended the Labour ally in parliament as recently as Wednesday, despite demands from Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch to sack the ambassador.
“I have confidence in him,” the prime minister said when facing questions in the House of Commons.
But the political pressure only mounted, and Starmer chose to minimise further damage. The outcome is another blow to the stability of his government, less than one week after Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner quit over concerns she had not paid all the tax she owned on a seaside property purchase.
More to come.
