


United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer fired the U.K. ambassador to the United States after revelations emerged showing his ties to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
The Sun newspaper published a trove of emails on Wednesday showing Ambassador Peter Mandelson’s correspondence with Epstein going back to his first conviction. Foreign Office Minister Stephen Doughty said in a statement in the House of Commons on Thursday that new information had changed the government’s view.
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“The emails show … that the depth and extent of Lord Mandelson’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein is materially different from that known at the time of his appointment. In particular … Lord Mandelson’s suggestion that Jeffrey Epstein’s first conviction was wrongful and should be challenged is new information,” Doughty told Parliament.
“In light of that … I’m mindful, as we all are, of the victims of Epstein’s appalling crimes, and he has been withdrawn as ambassador with immediate effect,” he added.
Emails revealed by the Sun showed Mandelson’s messages to Epstein, including one in which he said, “I think the world of you,” just before Epstein went to prison for soliciting prostitution from a minor in June 2008.
Mandelson took up his post in February and has been valued for his experience in trade negotiations. Analysts credited the favorable trade deal struck between the U.S. and the U.K. largely to the ambassador.
The U.K. opposition quickly seized on the Sun report. Liberal Democrats leader Ed Davey suggested to Starmer that the Trump administration could have kompromat on Mandelson, while Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch repeatedly pressed Starmer on whether he had confidence in him when the ambassador had been appointed, to which he replied in the affirmative.
The writing on the wall appeared early on Thursday when Labour Party members began openly expressing their dissatisfaction. Labour Member of Parliament Andy McDonald said there was “widespread revulsion” over Mandelson shortly before he was fired, the BBC reported.
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“There isn’t anybody in the Labour Party who is supporting Peter Mandelson today and the prime minister’s got to hear that and understand that he’ll weaken his position if he continues to support him,” he said.
The shake-up in the U.K.’s most important ambassadorship comes at a time of wider political turmoil and shows the reverberations of the Epstein scandal globally. Epstein has come back into focus in the U.S. after President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice accepted the official story of his death.