영국: '격노한' 스타머 총리, 만델슨 논란에도 사퇴 거부

Pressure on Prime Minister Keir Starmer is growing over his naming of Peter Mandelson as US ambassador despite red flags. The PM says he was not told that Mandelson failed a background check before the appointment.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer cannot seem to put the ongoing scandal around his appointment of Peter Mandelson behind him, despite weeks of a concerted effort to do so.

On Friday, Starmer raged that he was "furious" that he had not been informed of the fact that Mandelson had failed a critical background check before appointing him ambassador to the US.

"That I ‌wasn't ​told that Peter Mandelson had failed security vetting when he was appointed ​is staggering," Starmer said Friday.

"Not only was I not ⁠told, ​no minister was ​told, and I'm absolutely furious about ​that."

Starmer, who has faced ongoing calls to resign over the matter, said Friday, "What ‌I intend to do is to go ​to ⁠Parliament on Monday to set out all the ⁠relevant ​facts in true transparency so Parliament has the full picture."

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The prime minister on Friday claimed he had no idea that a recommendation by security officials to reject Mandelson's appointment had been overruled by the Foreign Office.

On Thursday, Olly Robbins stepped down as the UK Foreign Office's top civil servant as a result of the ongoing scandal.

At issue is Mandelson's cozy relationship with Jeffrey Epstein — a now deceased, disgraced former financier and convicted sex offender.

Mandelson's close friendship with Epstein was well known and his potential appointment as ambassador was always considered a risky bet.

Now it has blown up in Starmer's face and threatens to ultimately drive him from office.

Starmer's chief secretary, Darren Jones, confirmed that the Foreign Office had ignored the intelligence community.

Jones said background checks carried out by the UK's Security Vetting office, "go through financial, personal, sexual, religious and other types of background information, and that is why it is kept extremely private on a portal that only a few people have access to."

Starmer has insisted that "due process" was followed before he appointed Mandelson — a former EU trade commissioner and someone the Starmer government thought could deal with US President Donald Trump, who himself had very close ties to Epstein.

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Mandelson took up his post in February 2025, just days after Trump returned to the Oval Office.

Initially, the moved seemed a good idea, with Mandelson deftly negotiating a special trade deal with the US at the same time Trump was slapping punitive tariffs on countries around the globe.

Six months later, however, Starmer fired Mandelson after evidence of the extent of his ties to Epstein became publicly known.

Despite Starmer's claims, both then and now, documents that Parliament forced the government to release in March show that Starmer ignored numerous red flags before appointing Mandelson.

That only added to the shock of a February document release by the US Department of Justice that, among other things, illustrated the close relationship between Epstein and Mandelson — who remained a close friend to the US financier even after he was convicted of sex offenses with a minor in 2008. 

Mandelson is also accused of having shared sensitive UK government information with Epstein in 2009, while Mandelson was part of the government of then Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Mandelson, who was arrested on February 23 for misconduct in public office, has maintained his innocence in the matter and has not been accused of sexual misconduct.

Despite Starmer's insistence that he is blameless in the case, calls for his resignation have only grown with each new revelation in the ongoing saga.

Kemi Badenoch rejected Starmer's claims as "completely preposterous" in an interview with the BBC on Friday.

The leader of the opposition Conservatives, Badenoch said: "This story does not stack up. The prime minister is taking us for fools. All roads lead to a resignation."

The leader of the centrist Liberal Democrats, Ed Davey, also said Starmer "must go" if it is proven that he lied to the British public and to Parliament.

Edited by: Wesley Dockery