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Keir Starmer defended Peter Mandelson in the House of Commons two days after details of the damning emails between the former ambassador to the US and Jeffrey Epstein were passed to Downing Street, according to reports.
The prime minister sacked Mandelson on Thursday after emails were published revealing that he had told Epstein “your friends stay with you and love you” while the disgraced financier was facing jail for sex offences.
The Foreign Office received a media enquiry outlining details of the messages on Tuesday, which was passed to No 10, PA Media and the Times reported.
The permanent undersecretary at the Foreign Office, Oliver Robbins, allegedly asked Mandelson about the veracity of the emails but did not receive a response until Wednesday afternoon, a government source told PA.
The prime minister is understood not to have been aware of the contents of the emails until Wednesday evening. By that time, he had told the Commons he had confidence in Mandelson during prime minister’s questions at midday.
Kemi Badenoch accused Starmer and Labour MPs of “lying to the whole country about what they knew regarding Mandelson’s involvement with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein”.
The Tory leader wrote on X: “If No 10 had those emails for 48 hours before acting, it means he lied at PMQs and ministers lied again about new additional information. These are yet more errors of judgement. The prime minister has very serious questions to answer. The only way to clear this up is full transparency about who knew what, and when.”
Speaking on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4, the backbench Labour MP Olivia Blake said the reports that Starmer had not been told about Mandelson’s emails to Epstein soon enough were “really embarrassing”. “Any operation that fails to tell a prime minister when something as substantial as those emails are presented to them clearly has deep failings,” she said.
“We saw through the welfare reforms that they did the same again. They didn’t tell Keir, they didn’t tell the prime minister how bad it was on the backbenches. So, you know, he was putting statements out saying, ‘oh, some people can sound off’.
“Well, the strength of feeling in the PLP was much, much deeper than that. And again, I just think that whoever’s gatekeeping the information to the prime minister needs to stop. They need to be getting stuff to him much earlier so that he can get on top of it.”
She said Labour should consider whether Mandelson, who had displayed “a lack of judgment”, should continue to represent the party in the Lords. “It’s very worrying that we’re in this position,” she said.
The Foreign Office minister Stephen Doughty told MPs on Thursday that Mandelson had not disclosed the extent of his friendship with Epstein at the time of his appointment.
“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,” he said. “In particular, Peter Mandelson’s suggestion that Jeffrey Epstein’s first conviction was wrongful and should be challenged is new information.”
He said Mandelson was being sacked “with immediate effect” in light of the new information.
The Guardian was told Starmer had taken the decision to sack Mandelson during a meeting with Yvette Cooper, the foreign secretary, on Thursday morning, after reviewing the new material on Mandelson’s defence of Epstein the previous night.
It is understood Mandelson had not had access to the emails written in 2008 himself until the leak, because they came from a long-deleted account, which was not available during the Foreign Office’s vetting process for the role of ambassador.
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His friendship with Epstein was known before his appointment, however, and he is reported to have told the Times that he admitted in his vetting interview that he continued his relationship with the convicted sex offsender for many years.
Downing Street said on Friday that Starmer has “confidence in his top team” when asked whether questions had been raised over the judgment of his chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, who was reported to have lobbied for Mandelson’s appointment.
The backbencher Clive Lewis publicly questioned Starmer’s leadership, telling the BBC the prime minister does not seem “up to the job”.
Barry Gardiner, another MP from the party’s backbenches, said “toxic” resentment was festering among the party’s MPs and rank and file members.
Lucy Powell, one of two candidates to take Angela Rayner’s place as Labour’s deputy leader, called for a change of culture.
“We’ve got a bit of a groupthink happening at the top, that culture of not being receptive to interrogation, not being receptive to differing views,” she said.
Downing Street has been contacted for comment.
