The then UK Ambassador to the US, Peter Mandelson arriving at the Cabinet Office in central London, June 18, 2025
ANGRY MPs demanded the clique controlling the Labour Party be cleared out today as further details of disgraced Peter Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador to Washington were made public.
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Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said that he found “the faux outrage over Mandelson really astonishing” since he had been closely involved in the Labour leadership since the days of Tony Blair.
Sir Keir “must have known of his character, must have known what he was like,” Mr Corbyn added.
Norwich Labour MP Clive Lewis said the appointment reflected “a wider rotten political culture, a 30-year project where proximity to wealth and power isn’t a means to an end, it is the end goal. That’s what Peter Mandelson represented.
“This isn’t just about one bad set of decisions, it’s about a political culture that he represents [which] is destroying mainstream party politics in this country,” he added.
Steve Witherden, Labour MP for Montgomery, pointed out that “Mandelson’s avarice and malign influence in the Labour Party was why he was made ambassador and why he was useful to Epstein.”
Green Party leader Zack Polanski said that the “files confirm that Mandelson’s malign influence runs through this Labour government. Starmer knew exactly the choice he was making when he appointed him. He has to go.”
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The documents released reveal that No 10 national security adviser Jonathan Powell raised concerns about Mr Mandelson’s reputation directly with Mr McSweeney, who blandly said “the issues had been addressed.”
Those issues included Mandelson staying at Mr Epstein’s New York House after the latter’s conviction. Another reputational risk was Mr Mandelson’s promotion of Reform leader Nigel Farage as a possible go-between with the Trump administration.
Mr Powell found the appointment to be “unusual” and “weirdly rushed,” while the top official at the Foreign Office at the time also had reservations. … Keir [Starmer] ignored them all.
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Lord Peter Mandelson is seen leaving his home in Wiltshire, England, on February 20, 2026, days before his arrest by UK police on suspicion of misconduct in public office. (Photo by Ben Birchall/PA Images via Getty Images)
“In the UK, they are prosecuting the Epstein class…” said Rep. Ro Khanna. “We need accountability in the United States.”
After a second prominent associate of Jeffrey Epstein was arrested in the UK, calls are growing louder for those in the US who may have been complicit in his crimes to face similar accountability.
Peter Mandelson, the former British ambassador to the US, was arrested by police on Monday on “suspicion of misconduct in public office.” The arrest is reportedly in connection with an investigation opened into the former minister earlier this month.
Mandelson was dismissed from his ambassadorship by Prime Minister Keir Starmer in September after leaked emails showed that he’d maintained a close friendship with Epstein long after the financier had been convicted of soliciting a minor for prostitution in 2008.
A criminal probe was opened last month after the US Department of Justice (DOJ) released more files, suggesting that in 2009, Mandelson—then a member of the UK government—had passed Epstein sensitive internal economic information that could have affected international markets.
Bank statements also show Mandelson accepting $75,000 from Epstein over several years for an unknown purpose.
He is the second powerful figure in British society to be arrested amid scrutiny of his relationship with Epstein this month. Last week, former Prince Andrew was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in office, after emails showed him forwarding trade reports to Epstein, which were produced during his role as an official UK envoy.
Epstein had been charged with the sex trafficking of dozens of underage girls before his death in jail in 2019, and connections with the financier have led prominent individuals across Europe to be shamed out of office or out of influential corporate positions.
Neither Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor nor Mandelson has been criminally charged with any sexual misconduct related to the billionaire. However, at least two women have publicly accused Mountbatten-Windsor of having sex with them while underage after procuring them through Epstein.
In 2022, Mountbatten-Windsor settled a civil suit for about £12 million with Virginia Giuffre, who alleged that the former prince had sex with her when she was 17.
Peter Mandelson, the former British Ambassador to the US, was arrested today on suspicion of misconduct in public office. This is after files revealed Jeffrey Epstein sent $75,000 to accounts connected to him. As we have said before: no one is above the law. We will make sure… https://t.co/Sjf8FjnWSu
The arrest of yet another British government official for inappropriate dealings with Epstein has only heightened the contrast with the unaccountability of American elites, who have thus far emerged from the Epstein scandal unscathed despite damning connections.
“Peter Mandelson, the former British Ambassador to the US, was arrested today on suspicion of misconduct in public office. This is after files revealed Jeffrey Epstein sent $75,000 to accounts connected to him,” wrote the official social media account for the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee, which oversees the release of the files. “As we have said before: No one is above the law. We will make sure accountability and justice come to everyone in Epstein’s world.”
Files released by the DOJ in January, in compliance with a law passed last year, showed that at least one woman had accused Trump of sexually assaulting her in the 1980s after being introduced to him by Epstein, and that the FBI considered her to be credible, speaking to her on at least four occasions. It is not known what happened as a result of the investigation, and the DOJ slideshow referencing her allegation has since been scrubbed from the department’s website.
Meanwhile, at least six other members of the current Trump administration have documented ties to Epstein revealed by the files.
Most notably, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was revealed to have lied when he claimed to have cut off connections to the billionaire in the early 2000s. In fact, Lutnick maintained a relationship with Epstein for nearly a decade after the billionaire registered as a sex offender and even visited his infamous Caribbean island with his family.
Many other figures in the upper echelon of American society also maintained close relationships with Epstein despite his criminal conviction, including former President Bill Clinton, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, and former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers.
Following news of Mandelson’s arrest, US Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.)—who has led the charge for the release of the files in full to the American public, along with Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.)—said he wanted to see similar investigations and charges against Epstein’s American associates.
“In UK, they are prosecuting the Epstein class [Massie] and I have exposed,” Khanna wrote on social media. “We need accountability in the United States.”
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Health Secretary Wes Streeting speaking to the media during a visit to the specialist surgical unit at Trafford General Hospital in Manchester, February 12, 2026
CAMPAIGNERS have written to Wes Streeting requesting the release of his messages with five private healthcare-linked donors, following the Health Secretary’s publication of WhatsApp chats with disgraced former peer Peter Mandelson.
The letter, signed by leaders of eight organisations campaigning against NHS privatisation — including We Own It, the Socialist Health Association and Doctors Association UK — said the public has a right to know how health policy is decided.
They said: “Releasing to the public your messages with these donors (relating to health policy, DHSC [Department of Health and Social Care] announcements and NHS contracts) would help assure the public that your policy of increasing the use of the private sector for the provision of NHS services, is not driven by a quid pro quo relationship.”
Research by the Good Law Project in April 2025 showed 60 per cent of donations received by Mr Streeting since 2015 have come from private healthcare companies or those with financial interests in the sector.
Mr Mandelson, whose lobbying firm Global Counsel, represents data surveillance firm Palantir, has previously helped to facilitate a meeting between the firm and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.
The Mandelson scandal reveals a political settlement in which democratic choice is curtailed and the power of markets eclipses the will of voters – only the left can challenge this, writes JON TRICKETT MP
THE whole Mandelson revelations have been interpreted by the mainstream media through the lens of the appalling paedophilia of Epstein as well as whether or not the PM can survive.
But there are other truths which ought to be equally the focus of attention.
For more than a couple of generations, British politics has been conducted beneath the increasingly menacing shadows cast by the towers of concrete and glass in the City of London and around Canary Wharf.
Buildings that reach for the sky are owned and controlled by global financiers who exercise huge economic leverage. These are the new Masters of the Universe who along with big tech now stride like giants across the global economy. Recent events have cast a light into areas which are largely unseen.
Viewed from this perspective, we see that the emissaries of Big Finance have successfully penetrated governments of all shades. The revelation of Peter Mandelson’s role as an agent of the moneyed elite is extraordinary now in its transparency.
We now know that while the Prince of Darkness was effectively the deputy prime minister, he was funnelling private state information to Epstein the financier. It appears also that the former Prince Andrew was passing information gleaned from his role as trade ambassador.
We must conclude both that the betrayals now revealed were of extraordinary proportions but equally that it was not an isolated scandal or a matter of a few bad apples. It provides a window into a deeper truth: the systematic capture of democratic government by major corporations and financiers.
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The deeper lesson of Mandelson, and of the ongoing obsession with market “confidence,” is that democracy is not something that disappears overnight. As we see in the US, it is eroded gradually.
But it can be challenged. Only the left can do this, because the rest are trapped in a reactionary discourse. Reversing that erosion will require confrontation with power.
We remember the famous dictum about the political right by Nye Bevan: “How can wealth persuade poverty to use its political freedom to keep wealth in power? Here lies the whole art of Conservative politics in the 20th century.”
Recalling those words we must pose once again Bevan’s question to us on the left which is now urgen: “How can poverty use democracy to challenge the power of wealth?”
Jon Trickett Labour MP for Normanton and Hemsworth.
The then UK Ambassador to the US, Peter Mandelson arriving at the Cabinet Office in central London, June 18, 2025
Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson, September 7, 2001