Mandelson briefly served as the UK’s ambassador to the US last year (Picture: Carl Court-Pool/Getty Images)
Labour MPs have called for Lord Mandelson to face criminal prosecution after he was alleged to have leaked sensitive information to Jeffrey Epstein.
Documents released in the Epstein files apparently showed Lord Mandelson passing information to the paedophile financier while the peer was a cabinet minister in Gordon Brown’s government.
Dame Emily Thornberry,Labour MP for Islington South and Finsbury,told the Commons it was ‘not a matter of whether Peter Mandelson should be in the House of Lords,this is a matter of whether the police should be involved’.
The Metropolitan Police says it’s aware of the latest release of files related to Jeffrey Epstein and confirms it’s received ‘a number of reports relating to alleged misconduct in a public office’.
Ella Marriott,Commander of the Met,says: ‘The reports will all be reviewed to determine if they meet the criminal threshold for investigation.’
It came as Keir Starmer believes Peter Mandelson should not be in the House of Lords after the latest batch of Epstein files revealed more of the Labour grandee’s links to the billionaire sex offender.
Emails between Peter Mandelson and Jeffrey Epstein
One email in the latest release of Epstein files suggests Lord Mandelson gave Jeffrey Epstein advanced notice of a €500bn EU bank bailout in 2010.
Mandelson,then the UK’s business secretary,was emailed by Epstein who wrote: ‘Sources tell me 500 b euro bailout,almost compelte (sic).’
Lord Mandelson then appears to have responded: ‘Sd be announced tonight’
Epstein then asked if he was home,to which Mandelson replied: ‘Just leaving No10… will call’
In another exchange,Mandelson appears to invite Epstein to an event: ‘It’s a rave,’ with a later message referring to ‘tasty models and dancing’.
Lord Mandelson also sent Jeffrey Epstein an email saying he ‘finally got him to go’,just hours before Gordon Brown publicly announced his resignation as prime minister in May 2010.
He does not name the person he is referring to.
On his relationship with Epstein,Mandelson has said: ‘I was wrong to believe Epstein following his conviction and to continue my association with him afterwards. I apologise unequivocally for doing so to the women and girls who suffered.’
An image in the latest batch of Epstein files shows Mandelson wearing Y-fronts (Picture: Department of Justice)
Lord Mandelson’s conduct while ambassador to the US will now be examined to see what information was shared with private companies,including Palantir. The peer brokered a meeting between Sir Keir Starmer and the firm.
Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister Darren Jones said: ‘The undeclared exchange of funds,the passing on of Government information,let alone the facts that those exchanges were to a convicted paedophile,are wholly unconscionable.
‘And the House will know that if any of those activities were to take place today,ministers would be swiftly relieved of their duties and could be,via the recall petitions available to the House,removed from their constituency too.’
He added that criminal investigations are a ‘matter for the prosecution services and the police’.
He said further investigations were now taking place by the Cabinet Secretary into the exchange of information on the sale of RBS assets to JP Morgan.
Shadow Cabinet Office minister Alex Burghart said Mandelson’s appointment as US ambassador was a ‘national embarassment’.
He said: ‘The crimes of Jeffrey Epstein were truly terrible. Paedophilia,sex trafficking,child prostitution,was an awful abuse of power,and it is of course a great embarrassment to our country that its most senior ambassador should have been caught up with a man like him.’
Emails in the latest release include one in which Mandelson tells Epstein he was trying to get then-Chancellor Alistair Darling to ‘amend’ a tax on bankers’ bonuses – while he was business secretary and de facto deputy prime minister.
He also suggests JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon should ‘mildly threaten’ Darling.
Mandelson was sacked as the UK’s ambassador to the US – seen as one of the top jobs in British diplomacy – last year over his friendship with Epstein.
In a letter to Labour Party general secretary Hollie Ridley on Sunday night,he said he feels ‘regretful and sorry’ about the stories that emerged in the past two days.
The party later said disciplinary action was ‘under way prior to his resignation’.
Mandelson with Starmer after being appointed as the UK’s ambassador to the US (Picture: Carl Court/Getty Images)
He continued: ‘Allegations which I believe to be false that he made financial payments to me 20 years ago,and of which I have no record or recollection,need investigating by me.
‘While doing this I do not wish to cause further embarrassment to the Labour Party and I am therefore stepping down from membership of the party.’
The Prime Minister’s spokesman made clear today that Starmer was not able to strip Mandelson of his peerage unilaterally.
He said: ‘The Prime Minister believes that Peter Mandelson should not be a member of the House of Lords or use the title. However,the Prime Minister does not have the power to remove it.’
Instead,Starmer called on the Lords to work alongside the government to modernise its disciplinary procedures.
Currently,peerages can only be removed with new legislation.
This archaic procedure was last used in the years after the First World War to deal with members of the nobility who backed the Germans,and there is no precedent for using a new law on a specific person.
Alternatively,Mandelson could opt to resign his seat in the upper chamber voluntarily.
He is currently on a leave of absence.
In the meantime,the cabinet secretary has been asked to review ‘all available information regarding Peter Mandelson’s contacts with Jeffrey Epstein during his period as a Government minister’.
Mandelson has been a major figure in Labour politics for four decades,and had two spells as Business Secretary under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
But he has often attracted controversy over his long career,resigning twice from his Cabinet positions over accusations of dodgy dealings.
Documents released by the US Department of Justice at the weekend show thousands of pounds were paid to Mandelson and his husband Reinaldo Avila da Silva by Epstein.
Those payments continued after the disgraced financier had been released from prison.
Meanwhile,newly released images from Epstein’s archive include one showing Mandelson in just his underwear and a T-shirt speaking to an unidentified woman.
According to Sky News,the picture was taken in the sex offender’s Paris flat,though it is unclear when.
The ex-Cabinet minister has consistently denied any wrongdoing and knowledge of Epstein’s crimes,saying he suspects he was shielded from them as he is gay.
The Epstein files released over the weekend place a new spotlight on Reinaldo Avila da Silva,Peter Mandelson’s husband.
They show he was the recipient of thousands of pounds in cash from Epstein in two transactions in 2009 and 2010.
An email from 2009 shows da Silva asking for £10,000 to pay for an osteopathy course and related expenses,with the financier responding later that day: ‘I will wire your loan amount immediated’y.’
Da Silva wrote back several days later,saying ‘thank you for the money which arrived in my account this morning’.
Mandelson was the business secretary at the time.
He has been in a relationship with da Silva since the 1990s and the couple married in October 2023.
Lord Mandelson pictured with Jeffrey Epstein at a birthday celebration (Picture: US Department of Justice/PA Wire)
Mandelson became a member of the House of Lords in 2008,and now the government faces calls to strip him of that position too.
Sir Ed Davey,the leader of the Liberal Democrats,said the move would be ‘the very least they can do for the victims and survivors of his friend Jeffrey Epstein’.
He said: ‘If Mandelson has any shame left he will retire from the House of Lords today while this process gets underway.’
SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn reacted to the resignation news yesterday with a post on X saying: ‘Starmer was too weak to remove him. Now he must be booted out the Lords.’
Today,Flynn wrote to the Prime Minister’s ethics adviser Sir Laurie Magnus calling for an urgent inquiry into Mandelson’s conduct and ‘how and why he was ever appointed to high office by these Labour prime ministers’.
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