- Mandelson damaged party and trust in politics: McSweeney.
- Says “the decision to appoint Peter Mandelson was wrong”.
- His resignation comes as the ministry reviews Mandelson’s severance pay.
LONDON: Embattled British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s chief of staff resigned on Sunday over the appointment of Peter Mandelson as ambassador to Washington despite links to convicted US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“After careful consideration, I have decided to resign from government. The decision to appoint Peter Mandelson was wrong. He has damaged our party, our country and confidence in politics itself,” Downing Street chief of staff Morgan McSweeney said in a statement.
“I advised the Prime Minister to make that appointment and I take full responsibility for that advice,” he added.
The 48-year-old Irishman has always kept a low profile but was dubbed by some the “most powerful man in politics” after playing a key role in Starmer’s emphatic election victory in July 2024.
He is credited with helping move the Labor party towards a more centrist political agenda after the ill-fated tenure of left-wing ex-leader Jeremy Corbyn.
He is also said to have been close to Mandelson, who previously helped former Prime Minister Tony Blair transform the party and its fortunes in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
The resignation came as the Foreign Office said it was reviewing a severance payment for Mandelson, who was sacked by Starmer last September over his friendship with Epstein.
Mandelson, a central figure in British politics and the Labor Party for decades, received an estimated payout of between $52,000 and $74,000 after just seven months in the job, according to a report in Sunday Times.
Documents released on January 30 by the US Department of Justice appear to show that Mandelson allegedly leaked confidential British government information to financier Epstein when he was a British minister, including during the 2008 financial crisis.
The revelation has put intense pressure on Starmer and sparked a police investigation into Mandelson, 72, for alleged misconduct in public office.
The Foreign Office said in a statement that it had launched a review of Mandelson’s severance pay “in light of further information that has now come to light and the ongoing police investigation”.
Cabinet minister Pat McFadden previously insisted that Starmer should remain in office despite his “terrible mistake” in appointing Mandelson.
He said the real blame lay “squarely” with Mandelson for running for the job despite knowing the extent of his relationship with Epstein.
‘Regrets’
Starmer’s deputy, David Lammy, became the first minister to appear to distance himself from the premier, according to a report in Sunday Telegraph.
The deputy prime minister had not been in favor of appointing Mandelson because of his known links to Epstein, the report quoted Lammy’s friends as saying.
Starmer’s Labor Party took power just over 18 months ago in a landslide election victory.
But it has followed Nigel Farage’s anti-immigrant Reform UK as the government has come under fire over immigration, economic growth and the cost of living crisis.
Reform UK has led by double digits in opinion polls for the past year.
Mandelson, also a former EU trade commissioner, resigned from parliament’s unelected upper chamber, the House of Lords, earlier this week.
The former envoy was one of numerous prominent figures further embarrassed by last week’s recent revelations of ties to financier Epstein, who died in prison in 2019 while facing charges of alleged sex trafficking.
US officials ruled Epstein’s death a suicide.
A spokesman for law firm Mishcon de Reya, which represents Mandelson, said he “regrets and will regret until his dying day believing Epstein’s lies about his criminality”.
“Lord Mandelson did not discover the truth about Epstein until after his death in 2019. He is deeply saddened that powerless and vulnerable women and girls were not given the protection they deserved,” the law firm said.
Starmer paid tribute to McSweeney in a statement. It was “largely thanks to his dedication, loyalty and leadership that we won a landslide majority”, he said.
“Our party and I owe him a debt of gratitude,” he added.
