The United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer has dismissed Britain’s ambassador to Washington, Peter Mandelson, after newly disclosed correspondence revealed the veteran Labour figure privately defended Jeffrey Epstein and encouraged him during his 2008 prosecution for sex offences.
Mandelson, long known in Westminster as the “Prince of Darkness,” had already resigned twice from Tony Blair’s government in the late 1990s and early 2000s amid misconduct allegations. His latest downfall came when The Sun and Bloomberg published emails showing the depth of his relationship with Epstein was “materially different from that known at the time of his appointment,” according to the Foreign Office.
One email, cited in the reports, had Mandelson urging Epstein to “remember the Art of War” while fighting prosecutors. In another, he advised him to “fight for early release” shortly before the disgraced financier began serving an 18-month sentence for procuring a child for prostitution. “I think the world of you,” Mandelson wrote the day before Epstein entered jail.
“In particular Peter Mandelson’s suggestion that Jeffrey Epstein’s first conviction was wrongful and should be challenged is new information,” the ministry said, confirming that Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper had been instructed to withdraw him from his post with “immediate effect.”
Speaking to the BBC after the revelations, the 71-year-old insisted he had relied on “assurances of his innocence that turned out later to be horrendously false.” He added: “His lawyers claimed that it was a shake down of him, a criminal conspiracy. I foolishly relied on their word which I regret to this day.”
Mandelson had previously described Epstein as his “best pal” and “an intelligent, sharp-witted man” in a letter written for the financier’s 50th birthday tribute book, later unearthed by a US congressional panel. He has since said he regretted “very deeply” maintaining ties with Epstein “for far longer than I should have done.”
The dismissal comes just days before US President Donald Trump’s state visit to Britain. Mandelson had been appointed earlier this year with the task of strengthening relations with Washington, but pressure for his removal had been mounting.
Kemi Badenoch, leader of the opposition Conservatives, called his position “untenable,” while several Labour MPs—including Andy McDonald—demanded he be sacked. Starmer initially defended his envoy, saying “due process was followed” in the appointment, but was forced to act once the fresh disclosures emerged.
