Messages detail the ties between Keir Starmer’s former ambassador and the late sex offender.

By

Dominic Green

Feb. 4, 2026 5:14 pm ET

The exposure of former British Ambassador Peter Mandelson’s dealings with Jeffrey Epstein should bring down Keir Starmer’s government. Mr. Mandelson steered Mr. Starmer’s rise to the Labour leadership, just as he managed Tony Blair’s ascent in the 1990s.

Mr. Mandelson resigned from the Labour Party on Sunday, saying he regretted his friendship with Epstein and wished to spare the party “further embarrassment.” Mr. Mandelson questioned the validity of documents suggesting that he or his husband received financial gifts from Epstein. He didn’t comment on emails suggesting that he leaked market-sensitive information from the government in which he served.

Among the tranche of Epstein files the Justice Department released on Jan. 30 are hundreds of texts and emails between Mr. Mandelson and the convicted sex offender he called “my best pal.” Some exchanges appear to show Mr. Mandelson, then business secretary in Gordon Brown’s government, sharing confidential and market-sensitive information after the 2008 financial crisis. In one, Mr. Mandelson offers details of a conversation between Larry Summers, then director of the National Economic Council, and Alistair Darling, Britain’s chancellor of the Exchequer. All these exchanges occurred after Epstein’s conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor in 2008.

“Need to talk, feeling confused,” Mr. Mandelson emailed in April 2009, when Epstein was still under house arrest. Two months later, Nick Butler, a special adviser to the prime minister, emailed Mr. Brown, recommending that the leader spur Britain’s economic recovery by “releasing value from the very substantial asset base which the Government holds.” Mr. Mandelson was copied on the message, and forwarded it to Epstein, who asked: “What salable assets?” In October 2009, Mr. Brown announced a fire sale of British assets valued at £16 billion ($25 billion). They included the Channel Tunnel rail link, a toll bridge across the Thames River, and shares in a uranium-processing company. Mr. Butler said Monday that he was “disgusted by the breach of trust, presumably intended to give Epstein the chance to make money.”

In December 2009, Mr. Brown’s government was preparing to impose a 50% tax on bankers’ bonuses above £25,000. Epstein emailed Mr. Mandelson asking if there was “any real chance of making the tax only on the cash portion of the bankers bonus,” rather than the more valuable noncash portions such as shares. “Trying hard to amend,” Mr. Mandelson replied, “Treasury digging in but I am on case.” Two days later, Mr. Mandelson recommended that “Jamie”—possibly Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase—should “mildly threaten” Darling on the subject. In his autobiography, Darling recalls a “very, very angry” call from Mr. Dimon. Despite Mr. Mandelson’s campaign against his own government, he failed to stop the tax from becoming law. In 2023 Mr. Dimon said he regretted his bank’s association with Epstein.

On May 9, 2010, during the eurozone debt crisis, Mr. Mandelson gave Epstein advance notice of what he believed would be a €500 billion bailout to save the Greek economy and stabilize Europe’s currency. “Just leaving No. 10 [Downing Street] . . . will call,” Mr. Mandelson emailed. The following day he wrote Epstein that he had “finally” convinced Mr. Brown to resign, before the prime minister announced his decision.

On March 31, 2010, Mr. Mandelson’s principal secretary sent him a note summarizing a conversation between Mr. Summers and Darling, the chancellor of the Exchequer. Within minutes, Mr. Mandelson forwarded it to Epstein with the caveat: “Pl[ease] protect.” At the time, Paul Volcker, a former Federal Reserve chairman, was preparing proposals for President Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board. Mr. Summers informed Darling how U.S. regulators might incorporate Volcker’s recommendations into what became the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Consumer Protection Act of July 2010 and sensed, the note reported, “more room for regulatory discretion than one might imagine.” In subsequent emails, Epstein discussed how the Dodd-Frank Act’s language could be massaged in Congress and assured Mr. Mandelson that if U.S. banks responded by going “off shore with no oversight,” they would land “right in the [U.K.’s] lap.”

In November 2010, Mr. Mandelson emailed Epstein, asking his “chief life adviser” how to avoid taxes on an apartment in Rio de Janeiro that Mr. Mandelson was thinking of buying and putting in the name of his partner, a Brazilian nurse named Reinaldo Avila da Silva. The two married in 2023. Mr. Mandelson recently said that he doesn’t recall the matter, that the documents look false, and that neither he nor Mr. Avila da Silva ever owned property in Brazil. The latest emails suggest that in 2009 Epstein sent Mr. Avila da Silva £10,000 to pay for an osteopathy training course.

This isn’t merely a pain in the neck for Mr. Mandelson. He was the architect of New Labour’s restructuring of British politics. His fall is part of its collapse. Mr. Brown, who appointed Mr. Mandelson to the House of Lords, is disgraced by association. So are Mr. Starmer and his chief of staff Morgan McSweeney, who backed making Mr. Mandelson ambassador. Another Mandelson protégé, Health Secretary Wes Streeting, denies that he is angling to succeed Mr. Starmer.

In only 19 months, Mr. Starmer’s party has sunk into a venality whose blatant coziness recalls the Whig oligarchy that ran Britain at the time of the American Revolution. He tasked Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner with reviving home construction, but she resigned after irregularities emerged over her property taxes and the purchase of an apartment. Ms. Rayner said she regretted not seeking appropriate tax advice after buying the dwelling.

Mr. Starmer appointed his friend Tulip Siddiq, a member of Parliament, to investigate corruption in the City of London. But Ms. Siddiq became embroiled in a corruption scandal in her parents’ homeland, Bangladesh, where this week she was sentenced in absentia to four years in prison. Ms. Siddiq denies wrongdoing but stepped down to avoid becoming “a distraction from the work of the government.”

Mr. Mandelson resigned from the House of Lords on Tuesday, hours after Mr. Starmer ordered officials to draft legislation to annul his peerage. On Wednesday, Mr. Starmer, pressed by Conservative opposition leader Kemi Badenoch, admitted that when considering Mr. Mandelson for the ambassadorship, he knew Mr. Mandelson had remained in contact with Epstein after Epstein’s conviction. Mr. Mandelson “lied repeatedly to my team” about the depth and extent of the relationship, Mr. Starmer said.

While the Metropolitan Police determines whether the allegations against Mr. Mandelson “meet the criminal threshold,” Mr. Mandelson and his friends have driven British politics across the threshold into the kind of corruption that derailed Italy’s politics in the 1990s. Britain needs an Italian-style campaign to restore mani pulite, “clean hands,” in public life. Like many in the Labour leadership, Mr. Starmer is stained by Mr. Mandelson’s fingerprints. Neither British nor American interests are safe in his hands.

Mr. Green is a Journal contributor and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5833484&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5309378#49662224)

“Need to talk, feeling confused,” Mr. Mandelson emailed in April 2009, when Epstein was still under house arrest. Two months later, Nick Butler, a special adviser to the prime minister, emailed Mr. Brown, recommending that the leader spur Britain’s economic recovery by “releasing value from the very substantial asset base which the Government holds.” Mr. Mandelson was copied on the message, and forwarded it to Epstein, who asked: “What salable assets?” In October 2009, Mr. Brown announced a fire sale of British assets valued at £16 billion ($25 billion). They included the Channel Tunnel rail link, a toll bridge across the Thames River, and shares in a uranium-processing company. Mr. Butler said Monday that he was “disgusted by the breach of trust, presumably intended to give Epstein the chance to make money.”

“Need to talk, feeling confused,” Mr. Mandelson emailed in April 2009, when Epstein was still under house arrest. Two months later, Nick Butler, a special adviser to the prime minister, emailed Mr. Brown, recommending that the leader spur Britain’s economic recovery by “releasing value from the very substantial asset base which the Government holds.” Mr. Mandelson was copied on the message, and forwarded it to Epstein, who asked: “What salable assets?” In October 2009, Mr. Brown announced a fire sale of British assets valued at £16 billion ($25 billion). They included the Channel Tunnel rail link, a toll bridge across the Thames River, and shares in a uranium-processing company. Mr. Butler said Monday that he was “disgusted by the breach of trust, presumably intended to give Epstein the chance to make money.”

“Need to talk, feeling confused,” Mr. Mandelson emailed in April 2009, when Epstein was still under house arrest. Two months later, Nick Butler, a special adviser to the prime minister, emailed Mr. Brown, recommending that the leader spur Britain’s economic recovery by “releasing value from the very substantial asset base which the Government holds.” Mr. Mandelson was copied on the message, and forwarded it to Epstein, who asked: “What salable assets?” In October 2009, Mr. Brown announced a fire sale of British assets valued at £16 billion ($25 billion). They included the Channel Tunnel rail link, a toll bridge across the Thames River, and shares in a uranium-processing company. Mr. Butler said Monday that he was “disgusted by the breach of trust, presumably intended to give Epstein the chance to make money.”

“Need to talk, feeling confused,” Mr. Mandelson emailed in April 2009, when Epstein was still under house arrest. Two months later, Nick Butler, a special adviser to the prime minister, emailed Mr. Brown, recommending that the leader spur Britain’s economic recovery by “releasing value from the very substantial asset base which the Government holds.” Mr. Mandelson was copied on the message, and forwarded it to Epstein, who asked: “What salable assets?” In October 2009, Mr. Brown announced a fire sale of British assets valued at £16 billion ($25 billion). They included the Channel Tunnel rail link, a toll bridge across the Thames River, and shares in a uranium-processing company. Mr. Butler said Monday that he was “disgusted by the breach of trust, presumably intended to give Epstein the chance to make money.”

“Need to talk, feeling confused,” Mr. Mandelson emailed in April 2009, when Epstein was still under house arrest. Two months later, Nick Butler, a special adviser to the prime minister, emailed Mr. Brown, recommending that the leader spur Britain’s economic recovery by “releasing value from the very substantial asset base which the Government holds.” Mr. Mandelson was copied on the message, and forwarded it to Epstein, who asked: “What salable assets?” In October 2009, Mr. Brown announced a fire sale of British assets valued at £16 billion ($25 billion). They included the Channel Tunnel rail link, a toll bridge across the Thames River, and shares in a uranium-processing company. Mr. Butler said Monday that he was “disgusted by the breach of trust, presumably intended to give Epstein the chance to make money.”

“Need to talk, feeling confused,” Mr. Mandelson emailed in April 2009, when Epstein was still under house arrest. Two months later, Nick Butler, a special adviser to the prime minister, emailed Mr. Brown, recommending that the leader spur Britain’s economic recovery by “releasing value from the very substantial asset base which the Government holds.” Mr. Mandelson was copied on the message, and forwarded it to Epstein, who asked: “What salable assets?” In October 2009, Mr. Brown announced a fire sale of British assets valued at £16 billion ($25 billion). They included the Channel Tunnel rail link, a toll bridge across the Thames River, and shares in a uranium-processing company. Mr. Butler said Monday that he was “disgusted by the breach of trust, presumably intended to give Epstein the chance to make money.”

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5833484&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5309378#49662225)