•Britain’s PM, Keir Starmer
British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, said yesterday he was wrong to have appointed Labour politician, Peter Mandelson, as UK envoy to Washington, as he tried to quell anger over a scandal surrounding convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s long-time associate.
Starmer is facing fresh calls to quit after it was revealed that Mandelson, whose friendship with the late disgraced New York financier was long known, had become Britain’s envoy to Washington last year despite failing security checks.
The PM had insisted that he and other ministers were not told until last week that Mandelson had failed the independent vetting process and placed the blame on Foreign Office officials who he said failed to tell him about the security concerns.
Starmer sacked Mandelson in September 2025, seven months after he took up the post, after new details emerged about the depth of the ex-envoy’s ties to Epstein, who died in a US prison in 2019 while facing sex-trafficking charges.
Addressing parliament about the deepening political row, Starmer said the facts about Mandelson’s vetting could and should have been shared with him before he took up his post.
“At the heart of this, there is also a judgment I made that was wrong. I should not have appointed Peter Mandelson.
“It beggars belief that throughout the whole timeline of events, officials in the Foreign Office saw fit to withhold this information from the most senior ministers in our system, in government,” he told MPs.
“If I had known before he took up his post that (the) recommendation was that developed vetting clearance should be denied, I would not have gone ahead with the appointment.”
Last Thursday, Starmer sacked the UK Foreign Office’s top civil servant, Olly Robins, telling MPs that he had set in motion a review of the security vetting process.
But ex-civil servants have accused Starmer of scapegoating Robbins, who will give his own account to a parliamentary watchdog committee today.
Opposition leaders have called for the Labour leader to step down, with accusations ranging from incompetence to wilful misleading of parliamentarians and the public.
Starmer told parliament in February that “full due process” was followed when Mandelson was vetted and cleared for the key role.
