The mood in Checkers, the British Prime Minister’s country residence near London, was gloomy. Keir Starmer received his ruling Labor Party’s top donors on Friday and was told that their trust in him had reached rock bottom. “They gave him a pretty clear message,” quotes the pro-Labour Sunday newspaper Observer one participant: “People are angry and think he’s finished.”
The evening before, Starmer had received the Labor group on the property – a rare event for the prime minister, who is considered reserved and rarely appears in a relaxed atmosphere. As a stand-up snack there was chilli and rice, unseasoned – “a very Starmerian meal”, blasphemed journalist Matt Chorley and revealed that only the outside toilets were available to guests. “I’m just as angry and frustrated as all of you,” Starmer said sea Sunday Times said to those present. As if he were a spectator of his own downfall.
It wasn’t until July 2024 that Labor had the British general election won confidently and ended 14 years of conservative government. A mood of optimism gripped Great Britain. Labor’s annual conference in October was a victory celebration. All of this has long been forgotten.
A little later, Keir Starmer made a fatal decision. He appointed his close adviser a few weeks after Donald Trump’s election victory in the US Peter Mandelson the next British ambassador to Washington. Mandelson was a Labor heavyweight, a defining figure in Tony Blair and Gordon Brown’s “New Labor” modernization project from 1997 to 2010. With excellent connections in Washington, Mandelson advised early on to build good relations with the Trump camp. “Peter will bring unrivaled experience to the position and lead our partnership to new strength,” Starmer explained.
Always new dirty details
Mandelson took office in February 2025. In September he had to leave again after it became known that he had remained loyal to the US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein even after his first conviction in 2008.
And now the newly released Epstein files are in the USA new dirty details brought to light. Mandelson received money from Epstein during his time as a Labor MP and revealed official secrets to him during his time as a Labor minister. He lobbied for Epstein’s financial interests and boasted of his good contacts in Moscow. He stayed in Epstein’s New York apartment while Epstein was already in prison. The two were obviously close personal friends.
Mandelson sat in the British Parliament with one interruption from 1992 until a few days ago, first in the House of Commons and then in the House of Lords. Now his party colleagues are calling him a “traitor” and accusing him of not representing his voters but of being a child molester. He gave up his upper house seat and his Labor membership. The police are investigating and two of his houses were searched on Friday.
Police search the home of Lord Peter Mandelson in Wiltshire, England, on Friday, February 6
Photo:
Ben Birchall/ap
Stunning in Parliament
Keir Starmer’s claim that he did not know about Mandelson’s closeness to Epstein when he appointed him did not last long. At the weekly question time in the House of Commons last Wednesday, Starmer initially stuck to his line: “If I had known then what I know now, he would never have come anywhere near the government.” The conservative opposition leader Kemi Badenoch probed: “Did the official security clearance provided mention Mandelson’s ongoing relationship with pedophile Jeffrey Epstein?”
Starmer admitted: “Yes, she did. He was asked questions as a result.”
The subsequent bewilderment in the plenary session summed up Badenoch: “How can he pretend he knew it, but then just asked Peter Mandelson whether it was true or not?”
It’s not just the opposition that is stunned. Even before Labor’s 2024 election victory, Keir Starmer’s weak point was that he surrounded himself with a small circle of power politicians from the Blair era. One of these was Mandelson, to whom many of Starmer’s confidants owe their careers.
Approximately Morgan McSweeneydirector of the Starmer think tank Labor Together, then Starmer’s 2024 campaign manager and since October 2024 Starmer’s head of cabinet. McSweeney began his party work in 2001 as Mandelson’s intern at Labor campaign headquarters and is said to have pushed him through as ambassador in 2024. The State Department, then under David Lammywould have preferred to keep acting ambassador Karen Pierce.
Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador to Washington was considered a stroke of genius – he was such a good fit for Trump
Today David Lammy, now deputy prime minister, says he warned Starmer about Mandelson in 2024 in vain, as did his predecessor as deputy prime minister Angela Rayner. At that time they were publicly silent. Mandelson’s appointment was considered a stroke of genius – he was such a good fit for Trump.
But today Angela Rayner has a score to settle with Keir Starmer. In September 2025, the then deputy prime minister and Labor deputy leader resign their positionson allegations of tax evasion. The quick-witted and people-oriented Liverpool politician has been seeking revenge ever since, and the Mandelson affair has given her a helping hand.
Angela Rayners Rache an Keir Starmer
Because when Starmer had to admit on Wednesday that he knew about Mandelson’s friendship with Epstein, he also agreed to release all internal government correspondence about Mandelson – except if it was security-related. The conservative opposition suspected a cover-up. She requested that all security-related files be handed over to Parliament’s Intelligence Committee. When Angela Rayner, now a defiant Labor backbencher, supported it, the government caved.
Since then it has been clear: Keir Starmer has lost control of the Mandelson affair. Because the process of checking and releasing all up to 100,000 emails and cell phone messages related to Mandelson is now being led not by 10 Downing Street, but by Parliament. The Labor chairman of the responsible Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), defense expert Lord Beamish, now has Starmer in his hands.
“Exclusively a matter for the committee”
The correspondence between ISC and 10 Downing Street is available to the taz. The Prime Minister’s Office, Lord Beamish wrote on Thursday, must present all security-related papers to the committee without redactions, must not withhold anything and must say exactly which passages should not be published and for what reason. The committee will then decide freely.
“The ISC will, as always, act completely independently of the government and we reserve the right to decide how to deal with the material provided to us,” writes Lord Beamish. “This has to be a matter entirely for the committee, and of course the committee cannot decide that until it sees the papers.” The government should therefore announce “now” when the papers will be sent.
Keir Starmer’s office responded on Friday that this would be clarified by the cabinet secretary – Britain’s most senior official – with the committee, stressing that the volume was “probably very significant”. This is now causing new criticism because acting Cabinet Secretary Chris Wormald was responsible for Peter Mandelson’s security clearance in 2024. There are allegations that he withheld information at the time.
Starmer could now find himself forced to replace his cabinet secretary, and possibly more. His chief of staff, McSweeney announced his resignation on Sunday afternoon: He recommended Mandelson as ambassador “and I take full responsibility for that,” he said.
Self-destruction like Theresa May once did
With the successful push to hand over control of the Mandelson papers to Parliament, Angela Rayner has established herself as the favorite to replace Starmer. She is supported by the left wing of the party, the right wing of the party is more behind Health Minister Wes Streeting. In order to bring about a vote on Labour’s leadership that could force Starmer’s resignation, a fifth of the group – which would currently be 81 MPs – must request this. Both Streeting and Rayner are expected to reach this number.
That would be a spectacular self-destruction by Labour, similar to what happened to the Conservatives in their final years in power. It all started when the mutinous Conservative parliamentary group wrested control of the Brexit negotiations from Prime Minister Theresa May’s government. The handling of the “Mandelson Papers” by the mutinous Labor parliamentary group uses the same procedures.
Now Starmer has to watch as one Mandelson revelation after another further weakens his position. On Saturday reported the Financial TimesMandelson introduced Starmer to the controversial data processing company “Palantir” in February 2025 during his visit to the USA. Palantir, notorious for its surveillance technology, was a customer of a lobbying firm founded by Mandelson at the time and shortly afterwards received a major contract from the British Ministry of Defense.
No wonder that anger over the Starmer-Mandelson relationship is rising within our own ranks. Labor is in crisis. The optimism of 2024 quickly disappeared in the face of austerity and economic stagnation. When it won the 2024 election, Labor had already won a majority in parliament, but only a disappointing 34 percent of the vote. The party is now polling below 20 percent on average – well behind the right-wing populists Reform UK, who have been performing well since their victory in the May 2025 local elections.
The next House of Commons by-election Labor is set to lose in the Gorton & Denton Labor constituency in Greater Manchester on February 26th. Another debacle is looming I am 7. Maywhen the regional governments of Scotland and Wales as well as numerous English local councils are re-elected.
By then, according to many Labor politicians, Starmer will be due. Meanwhile, Mandelson himself is not staying idle. Most recently, he tried to stop all media inquiries via a lawyer’s letter. The letter was marked “strictly confidential” promptly published.