A senior Cabinet minister said Prime Minister Keir Starmer was aware that Lord Peter Mandelson had a “strong relationship” with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein before pressing ahead with Mandelson’s appointment as the United Kingdom’s ambassador to the United States.
Business Secretary Peter Kyle told Sky News that the government had considered publicly known information about Mandelson’s links to Epstein and judged that Mandelson’s experience and ability to handle then-President Donald Trump made the appointment “worth the risk.” Kyle said the appointment process combined formal security checks with a separate political review and that the latter had identified material that was already in the public domain.
Kyle said the calculation changed after a cache of emails was published showing messages from Mandelson supporting Epstein while Epstein faced criminal convictions. "Now of course we have seen the emails which were not published at the time, were not public and not even known about, and that has changed the situation," Kyle said on Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips.
Lord Mandelson, a long-serving Labour politician and former cabinet minister, was sacked from the ambassadorship on Thursday after the emails were reported by Bloomberg. The Foreign Office has acknowledged receiving details of the emails earlier in the week—more than 30 hours before they were published and roughly 24 hours before the prime minister publicly expressed his "full confidence" in Mandelson in the House of Commons, according to reporting.
Siblings of Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre said Mandelson should never have been appointed. "Absolutely not. He should not have been given the position in the first place," Giuffre’s brother, Sky Roberts, told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg programme. His sister-in-law, Amanda Roberts, said families of victims had long had to surface information before officials acted.
Some Labour MPs voiced concern about the political fallout from the revelations, with one lawmaker saying privately that Mandelson’s access to confidential information made his position particularly sensitive. Members of both Parliament and the public have raised questions about the speed of events: Sir Keir publicly backed Mandelson one day and the ambassador-designate was dismissed the next.
The rapid sequence of events has prompted scrutiny of administrative and legal processes. Mandelson initially refused to resign and remained on the government payroll after his dismissal, raising the prospect of a substantial taxpayer-funded payout. Government lawyers would likely need to demonstrate that the former ambassador materially misled ministers or officials about the nature of his relationship with Epstein to avoid paying compensation tied to his appointment and dismissal, legal experts said.
Officials involved in the appointment process have said a combination of national security vetting and political appraisal is standard for senior diplomatic roles. Kyle rejected suggestions that Mandelson had been appointed before security checks were complete but said the separate political process had also informed the decision.
The episode adds to continuing public and parliamentary scrutiny over political appointments and vetting procedures, and it has raised fresh calls for transparency about what ministers and officials knew and when. Downing Street and the Foreign Office were not reported as giving an immediate public explanation beyond confirming that the ambassador-designate had been dismissed after the emails were published.
Mandelson’s dismissal comes amid broader debates about how governments handle allegations and associations involving high-profile figures. The prime minister faces questions about whether earlier awareness of Mandelson’s links to Epstein should have altered the decision to appoint him to the Washington post, and whether internal procedures for assessing reputational risks were followed.
Further inquiries and media reporting are expected to examine the timeline of information reaching ministers and officials, the content of the published emails, and the legal basis for any compensation related to Mandelson’s removal from the post.