Starmer’s Mandelson U-turn could be his last

Lord Peter Mandelson, New Labour’s infamous “Prince of Darkness” and British ambassador to the US, has been sacked by the Prime Minister due to the intimacy of his relationship with ex-financier and paedophile, Jeffrey Epstein.

This marks a dramatic shift from No.10’s stance last week at PMQs. When grilled on Mandelson, Starmer repeatedly expressed his “confidence” in the ambassador, and emphasised his importance to the UK-US ‘special relationship”. So, what changed between Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning, when the Lord Mandelson begrudgingly resigned his post – his third resignation from public office.

Well, the Foreign Office line is that “the depth and extent of Peter Mandelson’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein is materially different from that known at the time of his appointment”. While we can take this at face value, it shows a complete failure of the vetting process used to appoint Mandelson which Starmer has repeatedly defended.

More worryingly, the “depth and extent” of Mandelson’s relations with Epstein, that he had maintained contact with Epstein after his conviction was very much known to the Prime Minister yesterday, and known to him when he appointed Mandelson. Instead, it took only the leaked emails from Bloomberg, where Mandelson explicitly challenged the validity of Epstein’s sexual convictions, the same evening of Starmer’s vehement defence of Mandelson for the PM to reverse his stance.

This U-turn from Starmer may be his most costly yet, as it seems his own judgement to appoint Mandelson is under scrutiny across the political aisle and within his own party. This has echoes of the Chris Pincher scandal which was the final nail in the coffin for Boris Johnson. The whole country is asking why our Prime Minister saw fit to appoint Jeffrey Epstein’s “best pal” to represent the UK in the Trump White House, with the US President himself having embarrassing ties to the disgraced financier. The question “what did the PM know, and when did he know it” (reminiscent of the Watergate scandal which brought down President Nixon) is reverberating across the halls of Westminster from all angles of the political aisle.

Starmer’s judgement has been publicly criticised by members of his own party, with rumblings that a bad performance for Labour in the May elections could see the PM ousted. Backbencher Richard Burgon, firmly on the party’s political Left, expressed that Sir Keir will be “gone” if Labour’s dismal polling translates to the May elections, stating that the party is “losing votes to the left” and “losing seats to the right”, while Labour MP Clive Lewis publicly stated that Starmer “doesn’t seem up to the job”.

Let us not pretend that Mandelson was not damaged goods, this now being his third major resignation from public office, before Starmer decided to appoint him. The New Labour spin doctor, the “Third Man” of the Blair, Brown, Mandelson triumvirate, the so-called “Prince of Darkness” returned to the political top table as one of Starmer’s closest advisers in his election campaign, with his efforts rewarded with arguably the top ambassadorial job.

Starmer took a major gamble with Mandelson’s appointment, replacing well-respected and career diplomat Dame Karen Pierce with one of the most notorious, scandal-ridden and sleazy politicians in modern Britain, a gamble that has not paid off. Pierce has had an excellent career in the Foreign Office, being the first woman to represent the UK at the UN, and was very popular across US politics. Trump’s co-campaign manager, Chris LaCivita bemoaned her replacement, describing her as “professional” and “universally well-respected”. Surely, she was bemused as any when seeing the lack of credentials her successor possessed, and may even be having a wry smile to herself at the government’s expense this morning.

Mandelson’s political career is now surely finally over. He is a man who has truly earned his epithet as the “Prince of Darkness”, and has made a habit of bewildering political comebacks, yet even for him this seems to be game over. Lord Mandelson has enjoyed a career of glamourous highs and resounding lows, and this latest scandal may just be the final chapter in an unscrupulous and turbulent time in frontline politics.

As one Labour’s top spin doctors, Mandelson seemingly betrayed his close friend Gordon Brown by helping Tony Blair become Labour leader in 1994, something which Brown never forgave him for until he was forced to by desperation during his time as Prime Minister. He then became an MP and a cabinet minister in the Blair government, yet this did not stop his tendency from “flying close to the sun”. He was forced to resign twice within three years from the Blair government for breaking the ministerial code.

The first resignation in 1998 was for failing to declare a massive £373,000 loan from wealthy businessman Labour MP Geoffrey Robinson to buy a London house. Nevertheless, he still managed to find a way back into the cabinet in 1999 as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.

His second was in 2001, when it emerged that Mandelson had contacted the Home Office to help get Indian billionaire businessman, who had donated £1 million to the Millenium Dome project overseen by Mandelson, a British passport.

Mandelson then returned to government, but as EU trade commissioner from 2004 to 2008. Yet, even here he did not escape controversy, as his relationship with Russian billionaire, Oleg Deripaska, continued to haunt him.

Clearly, Mandelson’s tendency to be a boon to the rich and powerful has continuously landed him in hot water through his career. With this latest scandal, the “Prince of Darkness” has finally gone too far, and a career riddled with sleaze finally ends in disgrace.

Yet, with all this knowledge on Mandelson’s flaws – his incessant proximity to scandal and his tendency towards spin and betrayal – why did Starmer see fit to appoint him? Undoubtedly it could not have been a close relationship between Starmer and Mandelson, with Sir Keir reportedly being annoyed with Mandelson’s snide public remarks on the then-Opposition leader’s “need to shed a few pounds”.

Well, undeniably Mandelson had vast array of contacts and influence with powerful people. He was a high-profile figure, one who had status and class, something which Starmer may have felt necessary to deal with the forceful personality of Trump. He also had a (somewhat misplaced) reputation as a consummate political operator, strategist and fixer – a reputation which to me seems quite unwarranted as Lord Mandelson has seemingly made it his mission to continuously thwart his image in the court of public opinion.

More importantly, it was probably imperious status, which he has maintained for decades in spite of his previous unceremonious removals from office, within the Labour Party which helped land the cushy role. His biggest supporter was Morgan McSweeney, Starmer’s Chief of Staff, whom Mandelson gave his first ever job. McSweeney is seen by many political commentators as the true power of the government, Starmer’s closest aide, confidant and adviser. Last June, The New Statesman ranked McSweeney first on the list of people shaping “progressive” politics in the UK. Writing for The Spectator, John McTernan, who was previously Tony Blair’s Director of Political Operations, described McSweeney as the “heir to Peter Mandelson”. Uncanny.

It was with McSweeney that Mandelson jetted out to DC to meet with members of the Trump team. They were accompanied by National Security Adviser, Jonathan Powell, a name whom aficionados will recognise as Tony Blair’s Chief of Staff.

And here we come to the crux of an issue with the Starmer government. Starmer has brought back the “sofa government” of the Blair years, filled with New Labour personnel. Yet, these are not the political trailblazers they once were almost three decades ago, but men who carry around significant political baggage and fixated upon trying to repeat the past. Rightly or wrongly, Mandelson and co are not remembered primarily for the successes of the New Labour government, but rather for its faults: its insistence upon micromanagement and spin of their public image, the continuous factionalism and infighting in the government, and, most damningly, their involvement in the Iraq War.

Rather than attempt to create his own political vision for the country’s future, as Blair did, Starmer has chosen instead to attempt to replicate the New Labour years in almost every aspect. He has no political vision, no instincts of his own, but instead is trying tricks out of the old playbook which is far past its expiry date. It is this unwillingness to innovate, this stubbornness and inability to adapt to the times, which very may well be Starmer’s demise, whether it be due to a resignation over this current scandal, or at the ballot box in 2029.

This error marks yet another U-turn in a list which has grown embarrassingly long for Starmer. He ran on a platform of renationalisation for the Labour leadership. Backtracked. He promised to end outsourcing and creeping privatisation of the NHS. Now Wes Streeting holds the door “wide open” for private investment. He called ex-leader Jeremy Corbyn a “friend”, yet barred him from the party and denied he’d ever said such a thing. He described the two-child cap as “heinous”, “inhuman” and “obscene”, yet has refused to budge on the policy in government. Including climbdowns on welfare cuts, winter fuel payments and Israel’s unequivocal “right to defend itself” including “cutting off supplies of power and water” to Gaza, and you have a political resume marred with myriad contradictions.

Unfortunately, there was simply no world in which Peter Mandelson should have been appointed US ambassador. Any Prime Minister with a hint of political acumen should have seen that. Mandelson, while an undoubtedly talented networker and palm-greaser, lacked the temperament for the role. His seeming inability to stray too far from the limelight was ultimately incompatible with ambassadorial roles, where diplomats operate in a private, closed-doors environment. More importantly, he carried around too much baggage and scrutiny, too many unknowns about his private life to be a safe option for a highly volatile position. His history for crashing and burning in public office, let alone his history with Epstein, should have been enough to deter Starmer from his appointment. The risk heavily outweighed the reward on this one, and it seems like Starmer will continue to pay the price for his poor judgement.