UK leader Keir Starmer insisted Monday that he would never have appointed Peter Mandelson as his ambassador in Washington if he had known the full extent of the diplomat’s relationship with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The comments, Starmer’s first since he sacked Mandelson last week, come as the prime minister faces growing questions about his judgement, including from his own Labour MPs.
Starmer, whose popularity has tanked since taking office in July 2024, has endured several days of negative front pages in UK newspapers, with some even suggesting he is on borrowed time.
The prime minister backed Mandelson last Wednesday, only to fire him the following day after emails showed that Mandelson had encouraged Epstein to “fight for early release” shortly before he was sentenced to 18 months in prison in 2008 for procuring a child for prostitution.
“Had I known then what I know now, I’d have never appointed him,” said Starmer, who told broadcasters that Mandelson had been properly vetted before his appointment.
Some Labour MPs have questioned why Starmer appointed the former government minister when it was public knowledge that he had remained friendly with Epstein long after his conviction.
The government has also faced questions over why Starmer said he had “confidence” in Mandelson last week when the then-ambassador had already acknowledged that “very embarrassing” messages were about to be released.
The sacking came less than a week after Angela Rayner was forced to resign as deputy prime minister after she admitted to underpaying on a property tax.
The high-profile departures came just after Starmer launched a reboot of his government in a bid to start clawing back support from the hard-right Reform UK party, led by Nigel Farage.
Reform has been leading national opinion polls for several months, although the next general election is not expected until 2029.
Labour MP Helen Hayes told BBC Radio that there would need to be “questions about the nature of the leadership” if Labour fares badly in local elections in May 2026.
Graham Stringer, another Labour lawmaker, told Times Radio that Starmer is “supping in the last-chance saloon” and that many in the party think he is “making mistakes and doing poorly at the job”.
Asked whether he would quit if the party “felt it was necessary”, Starmer told Channel 4 News on Monday: “No, because I’m absolutely clear what the task is in front of me.”
“We have a crossroads, really, in terms of the future of this country. We go forward with Labour for national renewal, a patriotic call about this country and taking this country forward, true patriotism, or we have division and decline under Reform,” he said.
The government suffered another blow on Monday, however, when senior aide Paul Ovenden quit over lurid comments made in 2017 about Diane Abbott, Britain’s first black woman MP.
