Former British cabinet minister Peter Mandelson has resigned as a member of Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor party following new reports about his links with disgraced US financier Jeffrey Epstein, media reported on Sunday.
Mandelson, who was sacked by Starmer as Britain’s ambassador to the US last year after earlier revelations about his links to Epstein, said he did not want to cause “further embarrassment” for Labour, the reports said.
“I have over the weekend been further associated with the understandable furore surrounding Jeffrey Epstein and I feel regrettable and saddened by this,” Mandelson said in a letter to the Labor Party reported by BBC and other news organizations which Reuters could not immediately obtain.
Mandelson said he believed allegations of financial payments to him from Epstein, which appeared in British media based on files released by the US Department of Justice, were false and he would investigate them.
“While doing this, I do not wish to cause further embarrassment to the Labor Party and I am therefore resigning from membership of the party,” the letter said.
Mandelson was key to the Labor Party’s electoral success when Tony Blair was prime minister, starting in the 1990s.
He came under scrutiny last year after US lawmakers released documents, including a letter in which he called Epstein “my best friend”, which led to his dismissal as Britain’s envoy to Washington.
Mandelson also had a turbulent past career in domestic politics. In 1998, he quit as trade minister over a loan he received from a colleague to buy a house amid questions about a conflict of interest.
Another stint in the cabinet also ended in resignation in 2001 when he was forced out over his alleged involvement in a passport scandal involving an Indian billionaire. He was later acquitted of wrongdoing.
Mandelson, a former EU trade commissioner, is on leave as a member of the House of Lords in Britain’s national parliament.
Separately, Starmer said on Saturday that Britain’s former Prince Andrew would testify before a US congressional committee following new revelations about his links to Epstein.
