Mandelson: How decades of influence secured role as Starmer's man in Washington

Mandelson: How decades of influence secured role as Starmer's man in Washington Fleur Hargreaves on Fri, 05/08/2026 - 07:00 The 'almost hypnotic' Mandelson cast a spell over the Labour Party, becoming US ambassador despite failed vetting Keir Starmer (R) talks with Peter Mandelson, then UK ambassador to the US, during a welcome reception at the ambassador's residence on 26 February 2025 in Washington, DC (Carl Court/AFP) Off UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has been mired in scandal over the political appointment of Peter Mandelson as US ambassador, after the Epstein files revealed his close and enduring friendship with the late paedophile financier. Mandelson was forced to resign in February and was later arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office over allegations he passed on market-sensitive government information to Jeffrey Epstein. Then, senior civil servant Olly Robbins was fired from his post in the foreign office after being blamed for not informing the prime minister that Mandelson had failed security vetting. Starmer’s former chief of staff and the man regarded as the mastermind of his campaign to become first Labour leader then prime minister, Morgan McSweeney, also resigned in February over his decision to appoint Mandelson. McSweeney and Robbins have both appeared before the parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee, where they were questioned over the procedure that led to Mandelson taking up a role in public office without adequate due diligence. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Although Robbins did not dispute that Starmer was not informed of the outcome of Mandelson’s security vetting, the “prince of darkness” had already been named as ambassador before vetting took place, and his close relationship with Epstein was widely reported in the public domain, as was the fact that he previously had to resign from office twice over misconduct. Nevertheless, Mandelson was the first political appointee to this role in nearly 50 years. McSweeney told the select committee he had made a “serious mistake” in recommending Mandelson. He also admitted that the Trump administration was happy for Karen Pierce, the ambassador from 2020 to 2025, to be kept in her job. Starmer and Mandelson pictured together in January 2023 (AFP) (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); In his interview, McSweeney said he saw Mandelson as a “confidante” on matters of political strategy. Indeed, The Sunday Times reported that Mandelson had been at Downing Street just days before he was sacked as ambassador to advise on Starmer’s first major cabinet reshuffle, which saw many figures on the soft left of the party removed. McSweeney told the select committee that while Mandelson had recommended people for the reshuffle, those recommendations had not been taken up. According to the extensive research covered by investigative journalist Paul Holden in his book The Fraud, McSweeney and the think tank he headed, Labour Together, was at the heart of a political campaign to take down former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, install Starmer as leader, and marginalise Labour’s left wing. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); The project was funded by undeclared donations of around £730,000 during the period between 2017 and 2020 when McSweeney headed the organisation, for which the party was fined over £14,000 by the Electoral Commission . Labour Together’s subsequent head, Josh Simons, was selected – after no selection contest – in 2024 as Labour’s candidate for the safe seat of Makerfield in northwest England. Once in government, he was made a minister, but in the wake of the Mandelson scandal he had to resign from the Cabinet Office over allegations he paid a PR firm to investigate journalists, including Holden, who were looking into the story. Mandelson was aligned with this mission; he famously said in 2017 that he worked “every day” to undermine the Labour Party while Corbyn was leader. An undated photograph shows Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor (formerly Prince Andrew), Jeffrey Epstein and Peter Mandelson (Handout/US Department of Justice/AFP) A civil service source who worked with McSweeney confirmed that Mandelson’s appointment was McSweeney’s idea and that Starmer “wouldn’t really have been involved”, but couldn’t admit that “because it shows him to be impotent”. On Thursday, a man was arrested on suspicion of selling Morgan McSweeney’s stolen phone, with the Press Association reporting that “concerns have been raised that the theft could result in important messages about Lord Peter Mandelson’s appointment as US ambassador being lost”. Labour Together did not respond to Middle East Eye’s request for comment. Mandelson declined a request for comment. MEE contacted Keir Starmer and Morgan McSweeney. Mandelson has called his friendship with Epstein a “terrible mistake”, has apologised to the “women and children who suffered” at the paedophile’s hands, and claimed that he had “no exposure to the criminal aspects” of Epstein’s life. 'An almost hypnotic figure' Mandelson was elected as a Labour member of Lambeth council in south London in the late 1970s alongside his friend Roger Liddle, who would go on to be crucial to Starmer and Labour Together, hosting dinners for McSweeney and the tight circle of advisers who were plotting, many months before Boris Johnson defeated Corbyn in 2019, to make Starmer leader. In 1985, then-Labour leader Neil Kinnock brought Mandelson in as the party’s director of communications. The nascent spin doctor was key to helping Labour “modernise” the party, but an MP who worked alongside Mandelson told Middle East Eye that his purpose was really about “removing any sense that the Labour Party was about social justice”, and “transforming it into an agency which governs in the interests of global capitalism”. Mandelson and Tony Blair became close in the early 1990s, and when John Smith, who had succeeded Kinnock, died, Mandelson worked – without the knowledge of many of those involved – on Blair’s successful campaign to succeed Smith. Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson pictured in 1999 (AFP) In his victory speech, Blair thanked someone he referred to as “Bobby”, a coded reference to Mandelson. The MP said that Mandelson was an “incredibly persuasive, almost hypnotic” figure, who used his connections to “build relationships into the large corporate sector here and abroad”. They suggested that the attitude taken by Mandelson and Labour Together to Starmer was that he was an “empty vessel” and a “useful tool” to achieve these interests. Mandelson’s contemporary said his links to Epstein tied the New Labour man to the “nexus of wealthy people” and “global elite” that the sex trafficker and financier represented, and the decision to appoint him to speak to Donald Trump suggests that “the voices of the women counted less in the decision making”. Pals with Palantir Mandelson co-founded the lobbying firm Global Counsel in 2010 and it went on to count Palantir, the US spy-tech firm providing technology to support Israel’s genocide in Gaza, among its clients. Mandelson accompanied Starmer on a visit to Palantir’s Washington headquarters in February 2025, just before the company was awarded a £240m deal with the Ministry of Defence (MoD) - without competition - on top of its existing £480m contract to manage sensitive NHS patient data. 'Most supporters and bankrollers of Labour Together had absolutely nothing to do with the socialist traditions of the labour movement' - Jeremy Corbyn No minutes from this meeting have been published, and neither have the unredacted contracts been released, despite numerous Freedom of Information requests to the MoD. Labour MP Apsana Begum, whose Early Day Motion in parliament on Palantir gathered the support of 34 cross-party MPs, told MEE that “it seems inconceivable under normal circumstances for a government contract… that is worth hundreds of millions of pounds, to be issued without tender, and for no records to be held of the visits, meetings and discussions”. Begum called for “full transparency” from the government. She said she had “direct experience” of being “factionally targeted” by the Labour leadership, including having the Labour whip suspended for over a year for voting against the two-child benefit cap, which the government has since scrapped. The MP said that the “internal process” inflicted on her and members of her local party was “mired by allegations of data misuse, membership irregularities, harassment, fraud, and even bribery”. 'Get In': The plot involving a pro-Israel Irishman that helped Keir Starmer to power Read More » Last month, four Labour activists were charged over alleged vote rigging in Croydon. “It is inevitable that the prime minister will have to step down from his role, but regardless of when this happens, there does need to be a full and independent investigation into the actions of Labour Together,” Begum said. Corbyn also called for a public independent inquiry, saying that “parliament cannot investigate itself for its own corruption”. “The scandal is bigger than Mandelson,” the former Labour leader told MEE. “Most supporters and bankrollers of Labour Together had absolutely nothing to do with the socialist traditions of the labour movement,” he said. These donors, Corbyn said, “wanted to use a name and a brand to move Labour away from this mission and toward the kind that Mandelson represented,” meaning one of corporate interests, privatisation, and patronage. 'Institutional failure' Holden, author of The Fraud, told MEE that the subsequent investigation into Mandelson and McSweeney has been “pretty disgraceful”, with the committee appearing “plainly unprepared” and making “basic errors in questioning”, including not following up on obvious lines of enquiry and allowing McSweeney to go unchallenged on omissions and evasions. For Holden, this exposes a “generalised institutional failure, in that nobody has really been held to account”, and sheds light on how a faction in Labour was able to accomplish what it wanted. Mandelson walking his dog near his home, April 2026 (Reuters) McSweeney “built his political career on misdirection and dishonesty,” Holden said, and this has characterised Starmer’s leadership. The former director of public prosecutions ran as “Corbynism without Corbyn”, and then rowed back on his “10 pledges” once he gained control of the party. “This is the way that power works… the extent to which people are scrutinised and people are given the benefit of the doubt,” Holden explained, saying that Labour “puts way more effort into investigating a left-wing person on social media than on Peter Mandelson’s entire political career”. Jamie Driscoll, former mayor of North of Tyne, is one such left-wing politician. He quit Labour after he was barred from running again over an appearance with the pro-Palestinian film director Ken Loach, who was expelled from the Labour Party after Starmer became leader. Driscoll told MEE that the party had recognised he was not accused of antisemitism and admitted he had done a good job as mayor, but due to changes to Labour rules, the National Executive Committee was able to block him from standing again. Epstein told Ehud Barak to give Mandelson Israeli energy company role Read More » The right-wing faction that put Starmer in place “smeared and lied to undermine people who were socialists and social democrats as opposed to red Tories and neoliberals,” Driscoll said. They did it “because they could get away with it and it was successful”. Driscoll recalled hearing Mandelson talk about how he “didn’t like the idea of members being in charge” and wanted to move from being “dependent on members and trade unions for donations” because they were not on the whole in favour of private interests and companies like Palantir. During the 2023 Labour conference, businesses could pay £2,500 for a meal to speak to Starmer, who has himself declared more free tickets and gifts than other major party leaders in recent times Ian Corfield, a Labour donor, was given a civil service job as an adviser to Chancellor Rachel Reeves, which he then had to resign from amid claims of "cronyism". During his select committee testimony, Foreign Office chief Olly Robbins said he had been asked to find a diplomatic role for Matthew Doyle, a longstanding Starmer aide who was close to Mandelson and McSweeney. Doyle would go on to be suspended from the Labour whip in his new role in the House of Lords after it emerged that he had campaigned on behalf of a friend who had been charged with possessing indecent images of children. UK Politics London News Post Date Override 0 Update Date Mon, 05/04/2020 - 21:19 Update Date Override 0