{"id":51146,"date":"2026-04-30T17:48:26","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T17:48:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/51146\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T17:48:26","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T17:48:26","slug":"uk-prime-minister-starmer-survives-vote-to-investigate-whether-he-misled-parliament-but-mandelson-epstein-crisis-deepens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/51146\/","title":{"rendered":"UK Prime Minister Starmer survives vote to investigate whether he misled parliament, but Mandelson\/Epstein crisis deepens"},"content":{"rendered":"

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer survived the latest parliamentary confrontation over the Mandelson\/Epstein affair this week, but his position is increasingly untenable.<\/p>\n

In a House of Commons statement Monday, Starmer defended his handling of his appointment of Peter Mandelson as UK Ambassador to Washington, maintaining that it had been carried out with \u201cfull due process\u201d.<\/p>\n

Before handing Mandelson the job in December 2024, Starmer was fully aware of his intimate connections with the billionaire child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, including Mandelson\u2019s continued relationship with the paedophile even after he was convicted and jailed.<\/p>\n

An image of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor (left) and Peter Mandelson (right) with the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein taken from documents released on December 19, 2026 by the US Department of Justice. No time or location is given for the photograph. [Photo: US Department of Justice]<\/p>\n

As more revelations came out, leading to Mandelson\u2019s arrest<\/a>, Starmer\u2019s chief of staff Morgan McSweeney resigned in February this year to take the heat off the prime minister. <\/p>\n

This month, the Guardian revealed that in January last year the UK Security Vetting Service informed the Foreign Office that risk factors involving Mandelson meant his clearance for one of the most critical posts in the state apparatus should be denied. <\/p>\n

Starmer found another scapegoat: Sir Olly Robbins, Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), and head of the diplomatic service, who was sacked. The prime minister insisted he was not told of Mandelson failing vetting until as late as April 14 this year.<\/p>\n

This set the stage for Robbins, who appeared last week<\/a>, his predecessor Philip Barton, and McSweeney to be called to testify before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee.<\/p>\n

Robbins worsened problems for Starmer, telling the committee that FCDO officials were under \u201cconstant pressure\u201d from Downing Street over the decision to appoint Mandelson. <\/p>\n

Barton said he did not recall being informed of Mandelson\u2019s failed vetting clearance, and largely backed up Starmer\u2019s case, saying that while there was pressure from Downing Street to get Mandelson appointed quickly, this was not meant to bypass the security vetting of Mandelson.<\/p>\n

McSweeney did all he could to exonerate Starmer. Appointing Mandelson \u201cwas a serious error of judgment,\u201d he said. \u201cI advised the prime minister in support of that appointment and I was wrong to do so.\u201d McSweeney claimed that he too was largely in the dark about the extent of Mandelson\u2019s association with Epstein, saying, \u201cBut as a chief of staff, and if you\u2019re a political adviser, you\u2019re also relying on the information being presented to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Echoing Barton, he said of allegations that Downing Street wanted to avoid vetting Mandelson, \u201cthere is a real difference between asking people to act at pace and asking people to lower standards. And we never did that\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Later Tuesday evening, Conservatives leader Kemi Badenoch, backed by Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey and other opposition parties, forced a vote on whether Starmer should be referred to a detailed inquiry by the Commons Privileges Committee over his claim that Mandelson was appointed according to \u201cdue process\u201d.<\/p>\n

Four years ago, with Starmer then leader of the opposition, he had pushed a similar motion against Boris Johnson over misleading Parliament about COVID-19 lockdown breaches\u2014specifically the Downing Street \u201cPartygate\u201d scandal. This was after Johnson repeatedly and falsely told the House of Commons that \u201cAll guidance was followed\u201d.<\/p>\n

The vote on whether to refer Starmer was won comfortably by the prime minister, with a majority of 335 to 223. Such were the stakes that the Labour leader imposed a three-line whip on his MPs, treating the vote as a matter of confidence.<\/p>\n

However, Labour has 403 MPs and a current working majority of 165, so a significant number still chose not to back him in the vote. Fifty-three Labour MPs abstained or were absent, such as Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, who was abroad, while 14 MPs, mainly from the much-reduced Socialist Campaign Group (SCG), voted with the Tories.<\/p>\n

The safe \u201crebellion\u201d by the SCG only underscores their spinelessness, after capitulating to Starmer all down the line ever since he took over the Labour leadership from former SCG leader, Jeremy Corbyn, in order to remain in the party.<\/p>\n

Corbyn\u2019s former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell made clear that his voting against Starmer was meant to preserve the Labour Party as a vital prop of British imperialism. <\/p>\n

McDonnell declared, \u201cI did that because when someone is under attack like this, they should not run away from the attack; they should face it with confidence\u2026 My hon. Friend [Labour MP Karl Turner] knows as well as I do that the Privileges Committee would deal with this matter fairly, and I believe that the Labour Party would come out stronger as a result.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another SCG member, Nadia Whittome, said, \u201cIf we are to preserve what little trust still remains in our political system, it is vital that Ministers demonstrate the utmost transparency.\u201d She would have liked \u201cnothing more than for us to be focusing on what the Government has delivered [!] \u2026 Unfortunately, it is because of serious mistakes made by No. 10, such as appointing Peter Mandelson, that those achievements are being overshadowed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nadia Whittome speaking during the Motion on Privilege Debate [Photo by House of Commons \/ CC BY-NC-ND 4.0<\/a>]<\/a><\/p>\n

Starmer has been given a very short breathing space. The May 7 local elections are predicted to see Labour fall to as low as fourth place in some polls, with a staggering loss of up to 1,850 seats. The Conservatives will also suffer heavy losses, up to 600 seats. <\/p>\n

The main beneficiaries will be the far-right Reform UK, who are set to win up to 1,550 seats, and the Greens, who could gain 500.<\/p>\n

How brazen the discussion is in ruling circles of Starmer being removed was revealed in the leaked comments of Sir Christian Turner, Mandelson\u2019s successor as US Ambassador. <\/p>\n

The Financial Times revealed this week that Turner, speaking to a group of UK sixth-form students visiting the US in early February, had told them it was \u201cextraordinary\u201d that the Epstein scandal had \u201cbrought down a senior member of the royal family [Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor], a British ambassador to Washington, potentially the prime minister, and yet here in the US, it really hasn\u2019t touched anybody\u201d.<\/p>\n

In an extraordinary breach of protocol, addressing Starmer\u2019s premiership, he told the youth that \u201cat one stage he was pretty clearly on the ropes\u201d and his future looked \u201cquite touch and go\u201d. <\/p>\n

To start the process of removing him would require 80 MPs to declare their opposition in writing, which was \u201cstill quite difficult\u201d, he continued. Therefore, \u201cThe moment I would look to is the May elections. If Labour does very badly\u2026 I suspect the party will be able to go over that threshold and remove him\u2014seems to me to be the conventional thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Times reported Thursday that former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner, a representative of the party\u2019s \u201csoft left\u201d, is \u201cweighing up mounting a direct challenge\u201d after the results. According to sources, \u201cthe strength of an intervention by Rayner, and whether she would call for Starmer to resign, would depend on the scale of the losses.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the working class, the issue is not the personal fate of Starmer, or his replacement by another right-wing Labourite\u2014whether parading as a \u201csoft-left\u201d, or a Blairite such as Wes Streeting, Rachel Reeves or Yvette Cooper. None of these forces will change the fact that Labour is a right-wing, pro-business government of austerity and militarism.<\/p>\n

The central danger is that, in the absence of a movement of the working class, based on a socialist programme and independent of any faction of the ruling elite, the main beneficiary of the hostility to the Starmer government to date is Reform UK. Nigel Farage\u2019s party has been able to channel discontent behind an anti-immigrant agenda as it prepares to step up the offensive against workers to fund huge increases in military spending<\/a>. <\/p>\n

There is no parliamentary solution to this crisis, with no other party, including the Greens<\/a>\u2014who present themselves as a left-wing alternative\u2014representing a genuine alternative. The central issue facing workers and youth is building their own party, the Socialist Equality Party<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Join the fight for socialism! <\/p>\n

Fill out the form to be contacted by someone from the WSWS in your area about getting involved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer survived the latest parliamentary confrontation over the Mandelson\/Epstein affair this week, but his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51147,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[126],"tags":[264,385,20772,31584,388,31583,7162],"class_list":["post-51146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-keir-starmer","tag-keir-starmer","tag-labour","tag-mandelson","tag-mcdonnell","tag-parliament","tag-robbins","tag-starmer"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116494919767859259","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51146\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}