The UK’s Epstein Crisis | The Nation

It took just 18 months for the Labour government to sink into the sand of its own morally adrift vacuity. Storming to power with an enviable majority in July 2024, after 14 years of fractious Conservative rule, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer promised stability, service over spectacle and a government of national renewal. Instead, we got the muddle of endless U-turns, persistent stagnation in the absence of joined-up, large-scale strategy and now, a full-blown crisis.

Starmer’s personal ratings are already at rock bottom—the worst of any prime minister on record. But newly released Epstein files have prompted the resignation from the party of former US ambassador Peter Mandelson, as well as a police investigation, with Starmer’s top aides stepping down and mounting calls for the prime minister to go. If he is safe for now, it is only for lack of alternatives within his party. The prime minister has promised to change. But it’s hard to believe, much less feel sympathy for someone who brought this upon himself—not just the Epstein-related scandal but the dismal fortunes of the party in general. In any case, sympathies, now and always, should remain with the victims of Epstein’s heinous abuses, the countless women and girls for whom justice is constantly denied in the face of rotten political machinations.

The trigger for this government crisis, which has dominated the UK news cycle for the past week, is the US Department of Justice’s release of over 3 million documents from the Epstein files in late January. Some of those documents feature the now-disgraced Peter Mandelson, one of the key figures of the New Labour project during the Tony Blair years and well beyond. He had already been removed from his US ambassador role last September, when e-mails surfaced in which he appeared to defend or minimize the actions of his friend the convicted child sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein. But the latest Epstein files were worse.

This time, there were bank statements showing payments totaling $75,000 from Epstein to Mandelson and his now-husband, Reinaldo Avila, although Mandelson says he has no record or recollection of receiving this sum. The new haul reveals that Epstein paid £10,000 ($13,500) for Avila’s osteopathy course. There are photos of Mandelson in his underpants talking to a woman in a bathrobe, reportedly at Epstein’s Paris apartment. And, astonishingly, documents appear to show that Mandelson, serving as Labour business secretary between 2008 and 2010, may have leaked market sensitive information to Epstein, relating to government plans in the aftermath of the financial crash. This is what triggered the opening of a police investigation, although Mandelson says he has not acted criminally. But, unsurprisingly, the stench proved too great for the government. Labour grandees and MPs alike lined up to express horror and shame and issue calls for accountability, while raising questions about their leadership’s judgment. Starmer himself apologized repeatedly and said he was “sorry for having believed Mandelson’s lies and appointed him.”

But you do have to wonder about the absence of such anguish in December 2024, when Mandelson was appointed US ambassador. Back then, the announcement was treated as a regular news item. Foreign Secretary David Lammy said that Mandelson had “a wealth of experience in trade, economic and foreign policy from his years in government and the private sector.” One Labour MP enthused to The Guardian that Mandelson is “very good at making relationships, has unmatched negotiation skills.” Only left wingers raised alarm bells, with John McDonnell, former shadow chancellor, posting to X: “For many reasons associated with Peter Mandelson’s history in and out of political office, many will feel Keir has lost all sense of political judgement on this decision.”

Among those reasons must be that by then, Epstein’s “particularly close relationship” with Mandelson was already known, confirmed by documents released in a New York court in 2023. When asked about this friendship by the Financial Times in February 2025, Mandelson said: “It’s an FT obsession and frankly you can all fuck off, OK?” None of which seemed to concern those in the Labour party who kept Mandelson close. In fact, even in September 2025, when Mandelson was removed from post as US ambassador, Labour was insisting that he had until that point been considered “worth the risk” because of his “singular talents.”

And that is where the rot lies. Because this appraisal reflects a mindset guided by factionalism and political favoritism, regardless of ethical considerations. Prior to this latest scandal, Mandelson had already resigned twice from cabinet positions during the New Labour years, over conflicts of interest and financial controversy. Add that to the Epstein friendship, and it seems glaringly obvious that he should not have been awarded an ambassadorial role. Yet it turns out he was also ushered into the heart of the Labour operation, influencing all sorts of decisions. As one former Labour official told The Guardian, in the run up to the 2024 election, Mandelson “didn’t have a desk but he would dip in and out on big issues; he was always there for advice.”

Unfortunately, this culture of overlooking inconvenient truths within the tight, policies-light, Blairite faction running Labour is the Starmer leadership to the core. As one Labour insider told me of Mandelson, “He is the apex of it, but he is them. As long as they are in denial, they won’t be able to understand what is happening and why.”

With the majority of the British public unsure of what the Labour leader actually stands for, this hollow factionalism for the sake of it has long steered the Starmer project. It is why, during his party leadership bid, Starmer spouted left-wing pledges to win over the Labour membership and then ditched those promises in office. It is why his team were so determined to rout the left, freezing out advisers and parliamentarians, purging members and scorching election candidates for the most spurious of reasons, such as “liking” a tweet from a Green Party leader. It is why Starmer’s government has twisted in the wind, lacking a joined-up narrative or strategy, ideologically incapable of raising desperately needed revenue other than by trying to squeeze pensioners and disabled people. It is why the leadership has appeared so directionless, bouncing between multiple U-turns and endless freebies, amid negative briefings by his own advisers who quip that their boss is a useful idiot, fooled into thinking he is in charge. It is why the party has alienated its own voter base with its support for Israel during its decimation of Gaza, its harsh, migrant-bashing rhetoric and policies, and its refusal to boost public spending or break free from right-wing fiscal rules. Morgan McSweeney, the PM’s now-resigned right-hand man and a Mandelson protégé, made it his mission to rid the party of the Corbyn left. While left-wing Jeremy Corbyn was party leader in 2017, Peter Mandelson himself said, “I work every single day to bring forward the end of [Corbyn’s] tenure in office.” Well, it worked. But it also crashed the party.

A deeply unpopular Labour prime minister is now fighting for his political life, with no real expectation that he will remain in office for long. When the veteran left MP Diane Abbot (suspended by Labour) told Channel 4 News she could not see Starmer lasting beyond the May local elections, she was asked, why wait until then to remove him? “Because they are going to be catastrophic elections,” she replied. “And I think the idea is to let him stay and take responsibility.” An additional factor is that no leadership contender, other than Blairite (and Mandelson mentee) Wes Streeting, is ready to mount a challenge.

All of which is manna from heaven to the hard-right, anti-immigration Reform Party which, under the leadership of Trump buddy Nigel Farage, is hoovering up both former Conservative parliamentarians and comfortably leading the polls. While Labour stormed to victory in 2024, its 172-seat majority was a vote against the corrupt Conservatives after 14 years of economic stagnation and a gutted welfare state. In fact, Labour won two-thirds of the nation’s seats on just one-third of the vote; put it all together and you can see why it was dubbed a “loveless landslide.” A struggling population gasping for financial relief now views Britain’s two main parties, the Conservatives and Labour, as part of the same self-interested political establishment—and are looking elsewhere. That explains the rise of Reform, but also the revived fortunes of the Green Party under the bold eco-populist leader Zack Polanski. Green strategists note that in the run-up to the forthcoming by-election in Gorton and Denton, a Labour stronghold in Greater Manchester, voters seemed to be deciding between the Greens and Reform. Looking at doorstep data taken before the Mandelson scandal, one Green party aide told me, “It’s clear that people just want an alternative,” before adding. “Labour is not coming up at all. People are not talking about them.”