Tory leader Kemi Badenoch loaded the political gun, but it was Labour MPs who turned it on their own leader on Wednesday.
They were furious at Keir Starmer in the House of Commons all day over the debacle of Peter Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador to the US while keeping close links with child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The UK prime minister surely won’t have many worse days than this in his political career. Some Labour backbenchers believe he might not have many more days at all.
Badenoch laid the trap for Starmer on Tuesday night. She arranged for a “humble address” to come before parliament on Wednesday that, if passed, would force the UK government to release all internal documents about the disgraced Mandelson’s appointment towards the end of 2024 – he was sacked last September.
This spelled peril for Starmer and, especially, for his chief of staff, Cork man Morgan McSweeney, as it could exposé what they already knew about the full extent and timing of Mandelson’s Epstein links when they gave him the US job.
McSweeney was Mandelson’s protege and is known to have pushed for him to become ambassador.
Starmer tried to get ahead of the situation overnight by agreeing to release the documents anyway, apart from those the government wanted to hold back for reasons of “national security or international relations”.
In effect, that would give the Starmer-controlled Downing Street and Cabinet Office teams a veto on what was made public.
Paula Barker, a Labour MP who was seen as a deputy leadership contender last year, told the Commons she was “ashamed” of Starmer’s amendment.
Richard Burgon, another Labour backbencher, though one seen as an enemy of the regime, said the government couldn’t “scrub away this crisis” no matter what it did. Outside the chamber, Labour MP John McDonnell told Sky he had lost confidence in Starmer and that McSweeney “had to go”.
Keir Starmer and then British ambassador to the United States Peter Mandelson (left) last year. Photograph: Carl Court/PA Wire
A campaign started on the spot among Labour backbench MPs that aimed to force the government into a further climbdown on its overnight climbdown. They wanted independent oversight of the document vetting.
Perhaps crucially for Starmer’s newly uncertain future as Labour leader and prime minister, the charge was led by his former deputy Angela Rayner, who was forced to quit last year. She chose this moment for her comeback, her first big intervention since her exit.
Rayner told the Commons that the UK parliament’s independent Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), chaired by Labour peer Kevan Jones, should decide which documents needed to be withheld for national security.
In essence, she was saying Starmer couldn’t be trusted to do it. As stated, Badenoch loaded the gun, but Rayner’s intervention was the true moment of shots fired.
As the debate continued, Rayner left the chamber for negotiations with members of the cabinet over her ISC proposal, and as the expected evening vote loomed into view, the government decided to roll over.
Earlier on Wednesday, the fragility of Starmer’s position seemed to be underlined by the shakiness of his voice during his weekly prime minister’s questions slot. Badenoch had accused him of trying to “whitewash” the release of what have become known in Westminster over the past 24 hours as the “Mandelson Files”.
Starmer, his voice trembling with rage and emotion, insisted Mandelson had “lied repeatedly to my team” about the extent of his Epstein links. He said it was “beyond infuriating” and he was “as angry as the public”.
With the last of her allotted six questions, Badenoch finally skewered the prime minister. Had Mandelson’s continued links to Epstein after the latter’s 2008 conviction for soliciting underage girls cropped up during Downing Street’s Mandelson vetting?
It did, replied Starmer.
That was the moment that he lost many Labour backbenchers.
The question now is just how much Starmer and McSweeney knew at the time. The documents should give at least some of the answers.
The trajectory of their futures may become clearer after that.