London
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Peter Mandelson was fired as Britain’s ambassador to the United States on Thursday after his ties to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein became another unwelcome problem for the embattled Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Mandelson had been under mounting pressure over his relationship with Epstein after US lawmakers on Monday released a “birthday book” in which Mandelson had penned a handwritten note describing Epstein as “my best pal.”
Despite the revelation, Starmer forcefully defended his ambassador on Wednesday, telling parliament that Mandelson had his “full confidence.”
Hours later, the scandal snowballed after Bloomberg published a trove of emails between Mandelson and Epstein, in which Mandelson expressed support for his friend and offered to discuss his infamous 2008 Florida case with his political contacts.
Epstein pleaded guilty to two state prostitution charges and served 13 months in prison after a controversial plea deal. But the emails obtained by Bloomberg showed that Mandelson continued to support Epstein after that conviction.
“I think the world of you and I feel hopeless and furious about what has happened,” Mandelson wrote. He gave Epstein advice, suggesting he fight back using techniques from Sun Tzu’s “Art of War.”
Announcing Mandelson’s withdrawal, Britain’s Foreign Office told CNN in a statement that the emails showed that “the depth and extent” of the now-ex-ambassador’s relationship with Epstein is “materially different from that known at the time of his appointment.”
The scandal surrounding Mandelson had created another huge political headache for the beleaguered Starmer, who faced questions about his judgment in appointing Mandelson when the ambassador’s friendship with Epstein was well known.
Mandelson – who now has been forced out of three senior government roles over separate scandals – for years batted away questions about his links to Epstein. Asked last year about his relationship with the sex offender, Mandelson said he regretted meeting him, but dismissed the question as a journalistic “obsession.”
But the allegations became harder to dismiss after Democrats in Congress released copies of Epstein’s so-called 50th “birthday book,” collated by Ghislaine Maxwell, his then-girlfriend, in 2003. Maxwell was convicted of sex trafficking in 2022 and is serving a 20-year sentence.
Among the book’s 238 pages is a handwritten note, interspersed with photographs of Mandelson and Epstein, which starts: “Once upon a time, an intelligent, sharp-witted man they call ‘mysterious’ parachuted into my life.”
Mandelson described spending “many hours” waiting for this man to turn up, meeting his “interesting” friends, and how this man would whisk him away to “one of his glorious homes,” next to a picture of an island.
“Wherever he is in the world, he remains my best pal,” wrote Mandelson.
In an interview Wednesday with The Sun, a British tabloid, Mandelson said he found those words “very embarrassing” to read, and said he feared more “very embarrassing” exchanges would soon emerge. He stressed that he wrote his message before Epstein was convicted in 2008.
“I regret very much that I fell for his lies. I fell and accepted assurances that he had given me about his indictment, his original criminal case in Florida,” Mandelson added.
The Foreign Office said that “Mandelson’s suggestion that Jeffrey Epstein’s first conviction was wrongful and should be challenged is new information.”
“In light of that, and mindful of the victims of Epstein’s crimes, he has been withdrawn as Ambassador with immediate effect,” it said.
