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Article: Here’s what to know.

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British Prime Minister Keir Starmer was formally warned in December 2024 about the reputational risk of appointing Peter Mandelson as U.S. ambassador due to Mandelson's close, ongoing ties with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Despite the warning, Starmer proceeded with the appointment. Mandelson was later fired after further revelations about his relationship with Epstein and is now under police investigation for allegedly passing confidential government information.

Main Topics Covered:
1. The warning given to Keir Starmer about Mandelson's Epstein ties prior to the ambassadorial appointment.
2. The subsequent political fallout and damage to Starmer's standing.
3. The later firing of Mandelson and the ongoing criminal investigation into his conduct.
4. The release of government documents related to the vetting and appointment process.

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https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/03/11/world/mandelson-files-epstein-uk/heres-what-to-know

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NYT > World News

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2026-03-11 14:44

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2026-03-11 12:01

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2026-03-11 12:01

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Live Updates: Starmer Was Warned About Risk of Appointing Friend of Epstein As Ambassador
British officials told Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Peter Mandelson’s close ties to Jeffrey Epstein before Mr. Mandelson was appointed U.S. ambassador.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain was warned that making Peter Mandelson his ambassador to the United States would bring “general reputational risk” because of Mr. Mandelson’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender, according to documents released on Wednesday by the British government.
In a due diligence checklist provided to Mr. Starmer on Dec. 11, 2024 by his vetting team, officials highlighted details that were publicly known about the close personal and professional relationship between Mr. Mandelson and Mr. Epstein.
“After Epstein was first convicted of procuring an underage girl in 2008, their relationship continued across 2009-2011, beginning when Lord Mandelson was Business Minister and continuing after the end of the Labour government,” the document said. “Mandelson reportedly stayed in Epstein’s House while he was in jail in June 2009.”
Questions about Mr. Starmer’s judgment in choosing Mr. Mandelson, a longtime Labour Party operative, for the plum diplomatic post delivered a blow to the prime minister’s standing last month. Mr. Starmer is struggling with dismal approval ratings because of a sluggish economy and concerns about his flip-flops on critical parts of his policy agenda.
Mr. Starmer agreed last month to release the documents under pressure from political opponents and members of his own Labour Party. They demanded to know how much he knew about the friendship between Mr. Mandelson and Mr. Epstein when he made the appointment.
The vetting document released on Wednesday noted extensive reporting by The Financial Times, and warned that documents would eventually come out relating to Mr. Mandelson’s help arranging a meeting between Mr. Epstein and Tony Blair, the former British prime minister.
Days later, one of Mr. Starmer’s closest aides wrote to the foreign office that the concerns about Mr. Epstein had not changed the plan.
“The Prime Minister has decided to appoint the Rt Hon the Lord Peter Mandelson to the post of HMA Washington,” Ninjeri Pandit, his principal private secretary, wrote to leadership at the foreign office. “Please would you take forward the necessary arrangements at pace.”
Other things to know:
Mr. Starmer fired Mr. Mandelson last September after the publication of emails and other correspondence revealed the former ambassador’s long relationship with Mr. Epstein. More emails released in January by the U.S. Justice Department showed that the pair had an even deeper friendship than previously known, and showed that Mr. Mandelson had forwarded sensitive government documents to Mr. Epstein while serving in government in 2009 and 2010.
The British police arrested Mr. Mandelson last month over accusations that he had passed on confidential government information. He was released after questioning but remains under investigation. Mr. Mandelson has not been charged with a crime and has denied any criminal wrongdoing.
The Metropolitan Police have asked the government not to release any files that could disrupt its investigation of Mr. Mandelson. Officials said they have complied with that request and are holding those documents back from public release.
Aides to the prime minister have said they were eager for the release of documents related to the internal deliberations about Mr. Mandelson’s appointment. They say those documents will show that the former ambassador repeatedly lied to them about the extent of his relationship with Mr. Epstein. “None of us knew the depth of, the darkness of that relationship,” Mr. Starmer said last month in a speech. Mr. Mandelson resigned from the House of Lords and the government is working on legislation that would allow it to formally strip him of his title.
Days after Peter Mandelson was fired as Britain’s ambassador to the United States, he demanded that he was allowed to return to London with “maximum dignity,” the records show.
In a Sept. 17, 2025 email to an official making arrangements for his return, Mandelson wrote: “My chief concern is leaving the U.S. and arriving in the U.K. with the maximum dignity and minimum media intrusion which I think is to the advantage of all concerned, not least because I remain a crown/civil servant and expect to be treated as such.”
In Parliament on Wednesday, Alex Burghart, speaking for the opposition Conservative Party, rejected the government’s explanation over its handling of the appointment of Peter Mandelson as British ambassador to the United States. He said that “maybe the prime minister was lied to by Peter Mandelson, but he was lied to by an inveterate liar who had been fired twice before” — a reference to Mandelson’s two resignations from the cabinet. Parliament was being asked to believe that Starmer “who was once the chief prosecutor in this country couldn’t see through this nonsense. It beggars belief,” Mr. Burghart said.
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SKIP ADVERTISEMENTDarren Jones, a senior cabinet minister, told lawmakers in Parliament on Wednesday that the government would not have wanted to pay Peter Mandelson “one pound” in compensation. But it had taken legal advice and decided that this was “the quickest way to remove Peter Mandelson as ambassador.” Jones added that the government believed that Mandelson should either return his severance payment or donate it.
Staff at Britain’s embassy in Washington were sent a formal “farewell” from Peter Mandelson after he was fired, the files show.
“The circumstances surrounding the announcement today are ones which I deeply regret,” he said.
“I continue to feel utterly awful about my association with Epstein twenty years ago and the plight of his victims. I have no alternative to accepting the Prime Minister’s decision.”
Mandelson added that following his time as ambassador, the relationship between Britain and the United States was “in a really good condition.”
After his dismissal, Peter Mandelson requested a severance payment that was “substantially larger than the final payment,” Darren Jones, a senior cabinet minister, told Parliament on Wednesday. “Not just two or three times,” Jones added, but six times the final settlement that Mandelson received -- of £70,000, or about $94,000.
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SKIP ADVERTISEMENT“Jeffrey Epstein was a despicable criminal who committed the most horrifying and disgusting crimes,” Darren Jones, a senior cabinet minister, told Parliament on Wednesday, after the documents relating to Peter Mandelson’s appointment as British ambassador to the United States were released. Jones added that Mandelson’s behavior was an “insult” to Epstein’s victims. Prime Minister Keir Starmer had, he added, taken responsibility for appointing Mandelson as ambassador, “acknowledged it was a mistake,” and apologized.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain initially “proposed to ask Mandelson to resign from his post” as Britain’s ambassador to the United States on Sept. 11, 2025, the files show, but a Foreign Office official said he would instead be “withdrawn from Washington” and return to the department’s London headquarters.
“All present agreed this was the correct course of action,” an official record summarizing the meeting said.
The same Foreign Office official, Oliver Robbins, “spoke by telephone to Mandelson towards the end of the meeting to inform him of the Prime Minister’s decision and of the next steps” the document added, saying that representatives of the royal family were also informed of the decision during the meeting.
The British government on Wednesday released only some of the files it has that relate to Peter Mandelson’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, and to Mr. Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador to the United States.
Some documents were removed to avoid undermining the ongoing police investigation into Mr. Mandelson. Others have been removed or redacted because the government believes they could be damaging to Britain’s national security or international relations. Another tranche of documents is expected to be published in the future, although the timeline is not yet confirmed.
The Metropolitan Police announced last month that it was investigating the former diplomat on suspicion of misconduct in public office, in relation to emails that Mr. Mandelson sent Mr. Epstein in the late 2000s that may have contained confidential government information. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the former prince, is under investigation for the same crime. Both men have denied any criminal wrongdoing and neither have been charged.
Mr. Mandelson, a senior figure in the Labour Party, was a minister in Tony Blair’s government between 1997 and 2001, and under Prime Minister Gordon Brown from 2008 to 2010. He was arrested on Feb. 23 but released on bail pending further investigation.
After Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the government would release files related to the vetting process, the Metropolitan Police said in a statement that publishing some of the documents could have “a detrimental impact on our investigation or any subsequent prosecution.”
“An investigation into alleged misconduct in public office is underway and it is vital due process is followed so that our criminal investigation and any potential prosecution is not compromised,” the statement added.
The government then agreed to hold off releasing some of the files, and to allow the police to review some of the material before it was published.
The British Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee, which has oversight powers of the country’s intelligence agencies and national security matters, said in February that it would also review documents relating to the vetting and appointment of Mr. Mandelson as U.S. ambassador.
In a note at the start of the files released on Wednesday, the government said that the committee “considered redactions requested by the government and directed that redactions be made on the basis that full publication of this information would be prejudicial to U.K. national security or international relations.”
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SKIP ADVERTISEMENTThe documents include memos that Peter Mandelson wrote in 2002, encouraging Tony Blair, the prime minister at the time, to meet with Jeffrey Epstein. Mandleson described Epstein as “safe,” in the messages that came to light during the 2024 vetting process. A sticky note attached to the memos indicated that the 2002 exchange would not be made public until after Mandelson was appointed as British ambassador to the United States.
The files contain an official record of a meeting between Prime Minister Keir Starmer and senior British government officials on Sept. 11, 2025, that culminated in Peter Mandelson being fired from his post as British ambassador to the United States.
The meeting was held after newspapers had published supportive emails Mandelson sent to Jeffrey Epstein when Epstein faced charges in 2008.
The written summary of the meeting said Starmer had expressed “concern at the judgements and views expressed,” adding that the answers provided to officials regarding the emails “did not give him confidence that there were not further revelations to come.”
The document said the emails “revealed a depth and extent of a relationship with Epstein which he had not been aware of” when Starmer appointed Mandelson as ambassador.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain was warned before making any appointment that sending a political appointee, like Peter Mandelson, to Washington rather than a career diplomat was a risk. “If anything goes wrong, you could be more exposed as the individual is more connected to you personally,” said one email.
The documents include a due diligence checklist completed in December 2024 and sent to Prime Minister Keir Starmer. It showed details about Peter Mandelson’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, and said that they “maintained a particularly close relationship.” And it noted that Mandelson had stayed in the convicted sex offender’s home in 2009, when Epstein was imprisoned for sexual offenses. The information was flagged as a “general reputational risk.”
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SKIP ADVERTISEMENTThe documents show that Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s former director of communications and a friend of Peter Mandelson, Tim Allan, played a leading role in vetting Mandelson over his relations with Jeffrey Epstein. “Your director of communications is satisfied with his reponses to questions about contact,” said one document. Allan, who worked alongside Mandelson in the 1990s, resigned this year.
Peter Mandelson was granted the second-highest level of security clearance by the British government after being formally appointed as ambassador to the United States, the files show.
A Foreign Office letter that confirmed his post said: “Your security clearance has been confirmed by Vetting Unit and is valid until 29 January 2030.”
Developed Vetting grants people “frequent and uncontrolled access” to top secret material and classified material from other countries, according to official guidance, and requires detailed questioning and a wide range of records checks before it is granted.
As a strategist, senior minister in several British governments and an influential politician, Peter Mandelson helped to shape the country’s politics for decades.
But appointing him in 2024 as Britain’s ambassador to the United States was always a gamble for Prime Minister Keir Starmer. And it backfired spectacularly when Mr. Mandelson was fired last year, after just seven months, over his close friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender and disgraced financier.
A subsequent release of documents by the U.S. Department of Justice appeared to show that, while serving as a minister in a previous government, Mr. Mandelson, 72, might have provided confidential information to Mr. Epstein.
Mr. Mandelson was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office in relation to those accusations. He has not been charged with a crime and has denied any criminal wrongdoing.
The controversy over Mr. Mandelson’s appointment has deepened a crisis swirling around Mr. Starmer, as critics questioned his judgment in naming such a high-risk candidate. Mr. Mandelson’s friendship with Mr. Epstein was public knowledge even if its extent was not. Mr. Starmer has said the former ambassador lied about his ties to Mr. Epstein when he was appointed.
Mr. Mandelson is also a flamboyant and divisive political figure, who sometimes seemed to revel in his Machiavellian reputation and nickname as the “prince of darkness.”
In the 1980s, when the Labour Party languished in opposition, Mr. Mandelson’s formidable media management skills helped to revolutionize its image and move it to the political center ground.
Even so, Labour lost the 1992 general election. But Mr. Mandelson entered Parliament that year. He supported Tony Blair’s leadership ambitions in 1994, and his work on modernizing the party helped to create the New Labour brand that propelled Mr. Blair into 10 Downing Street as prime minister in 1997.
As a close ally of Mr. Blair, Mr. Mandelson was part of the prime minister’s inner circle for awhile.
Mr. Mandelson was forced to resign from government twice over scandals. Once was in 1998, for an undeclared home loan he had received from a colleague; the other was in 2001, over accusations that he had tried to influence the passport application for a billionaire donor.
Mr. Mandelson went on to serve as the European Union’s trade commissioner from 2004 to 2008 during negotiations on a global trading deal that ultimately collapsed.
Then, Mr. Mandelson was summoned back to government in Britain by Gordon Brown, who had succeeded Mr. Blair in 2007 but whose government was struggling. As a senior member of Mr. Brown’s cabinet, Mr. Mandelson was given a seat in Parliament’s upper chamber and was appointed a lord.
After the Labour Party lost the 2010 election, he co-founded Global Counsel, an advisory business. The recently released documents appear to show that Mr. Epstein’s advice was sought and taken. The company entered an insolvency procedure last month after losing major clients after the new revelations about Mr. Mandelson’s ties to Mr. Epstein.
But Mr. Mandelson still had ambitions to return to the frontline of politics and, after Mr. Starmer won the general election in 2024, the opportunity arose. The prime minister judged that Mr. Mandelson’s political approach and social skills would allow him to cultivate strong contacts to the White House of President Trump.
It was a decision that Britain’s prime minister came to regret, and it led to an ignominious end to the career of one of the country’s most influential, if flawed, politicians.
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SKIP ADVERTISEMENTThe British government has released the first batch of files related to the 2024 appointment of Peter Mandelson, a friend of Jeffrey Epstein, as the British ambassador to the U.S. The publication of the information is related to the vetting process and what the government knew about Mandelson’s relationship to Epstein.
At several points over the past decade the British police decided not to investigate accusations that Jeffrey Epstein had trafficked Virginia Giuffre to Britain and forced her to have sex with Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, then known as Prince Andrew.
As early as 2015, Ms. Giuffre told the Metropolitan Police, the force that covers London, that Mr. Epstein and his longtime accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, had flown her to the city in 2001 and made her have sex with Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor at Ms. Maxwell’s home in the capital.
The police told The New York Times this week that they had interviewed Ms. Giuffre on three separate occasions following her allegations, twice in 2015 and once in 2016, but decided against a criminal investigation.
In 2019, 2021 and 2022, as new information emerged through the U.S. federal prosecutions of Mr. Epstein and later of Ms. Maxwell, as well as through civil cases and media interviews, the police in London reviewed their original decision. Each time, they decided not to investigate.
The question of why no action was taken has drawn greater scrutiny since the U.S. Justice Department released millions of documents relating to Mr. Epstein. In the weeks since, the British police have arrested a former ambassador to the United States, Peter Mandelson, and Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor. Both men were arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office over emails to Mr. Epstein that may have contained confidential government information, though neither have been charged and both deny any criminal wrongdoing.
Among the documents released in January by the Justice Department is a May 4, 2015, letter to the Metropolitan Police from Paul G. Cassell, a lawyer who was then representing Ms. Giuffre.
The letter says that Ms. Giuffre, whose name is redacted in the file, was transported to London in March 2001 by Mr. Epstein and Ms. Maxwell after two years of previous sexual abuse by the pair, during which they had “groomed her to perform sexual acts for their powerful friends.”
The letter included a copy of a photograph of Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor with his arm around the waist of Ms. Giuffre, who was then 17, while Ms. Maxwell smiles nearby. “The date on the photograph shows that it was developed on March 13, 2001,” Mr. Cassell wrote, adding that he had access to the original.
The letter also said that Ms. Giuffre had been “lent” to Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor for sex in London. Also included was a first-person statement from Ms. Giuffre describing the abuse and naming other individuals involved in trafficking and exploiting girls and young women.
Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor has consistently denied any wrongdoing in relation to Ms. Giuffre. His lawyer did not respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Cassell said that at the time of the letter, he and Ms. Giuffre’s other lawyers were fighting for accountability after a 2008 plea deal allowed Mr. Epstein to receive a short prison sentence for soliciting prostitution from a minor.
“We were trying to think if there was a new opportunity to present Virginia’s allegations to another authority with jurisdiction over them, and I came up with the idea that Scotland Yard would be appropriate,” Mr. Cassell, who is a law professor at the University of Utah, said in a phone interview last month. “There was photographic evidence of her whereabouts in London and flight logs confirming that she had been trafficked from the U.S. into the U.K.”
Mr. Cassell said that the Metropolitan Police replied to his letter “after an extended period of time” and conducted a video interview with Ms. Giuffre.
In a statement, the Metropolitan Police said that during their three interviews with Ms. Giuffre and with other potential victims of Mr. Epstein that it contacted, “no allegation of criminal conduct was made against any U.K.‑based individual.” The police said that Ms. Giuffre had stated that she was “the victim of an international sex-trafficking offense.”
That aligns with Ms. Giuffre’s statement in the 2015 letter, in which she does not accuse Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor of rape but describes being told by Mr. Epstein to do “whatever Prince Andrew wanted” and then being left alone with him in Ms. Maxwell’s house. “We engaged in sexual activities there,” she writes, adding that Mr. Epstein later paid her approximately $15,000, “for what I had done and to keep my mouth shut about ‘working’ with the Prince.”
The Metropolitan Police said that it had sought advice from British prosecutors and “liaised with United States authorities, who were leading investigations into related matters involving U.S. nationals.”
“Following this legal advice, it was clear that any investigation into human trafficking would be largely focused on activities outside the U.K. and perpetrators based overseas and therefore international authorities were best placed to progress these allegations,” the statement said. “A decision was then made in November 2016 not to proceed to a full criminal investigation.”
The Metropolitan Police would not say which U.S. authorities it believed were investigating Mr. Epstein at the time, and the F.B.I. declined to comment. A memo released as part of the Epstein files in January showed that Drug Enforcement Administration agents were investigating Mr. Epstein and others in 2015 for “illegitimate wire transfers which are tied to illicit drug and/or prostitution activities.”
The outcome of that investigation is unclear, but it did not lead to charges against Mr. Epstein or his associates.
In November 2019, Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor gave an interview to the BBC in which he was asked in detail about Ms. Giuffre’s allegations and insisted that he had “no recollection” of meeting her.
Vera Baird, a British lawyer and former lawmaker, was serving at the time as the victims commissioner for England and Wales, a role that promotes the interests of victims of crime. After watching Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor’s interview, she contacted the Metropolitan Police to express her concern over the lack of a criminal investigation.
Ms. Baird said that an officer then visited her in person and told her that the force had decided not to investigate because the bulk of the case related to activity outside of Britain. Mr. Epstein had killed himself in his Manhattan jail cell months earlier after being indicted on a charge of sex trafficking minors.
“I thought it was extraordinary that the police had not investigated the presence of this girl at Ghislaine Maxwell’s house in London,” Ms. Baird said, adding that she had felt, “They should be taking more notice.”
Ms. Giuffre died by suicide in 2025, aged 41.
By deferring to the U.S. authorities, Mr. Cassell said, the Metropolitan Police had contributed to a broader failure to hold Mr. Epstein and his co-conspirators to account and to protect other minors from trafficking and abuse. He added that the British authorities had missed a chance to pursue a case three years before Mr. Epstein was indicted in New York.
“If you’re serious about fighting international sex trafficking, this case should have been a high priority for the Metropolitan Police or any agency,” he said.
Some legal experts pointed out that aside from trafficking, deciding what specific criminal charges might apply in relation to the events that Ms. Giuffre said had taken place in Britain was complicated. In Britain, the age of consent is 16, as opposed to 17 or 18 in some U.S. states. And the exchange of sexual services for money is legal in some circumstances in Britain — although inciting someone to become a prostitute or controlling them for financial gain is against the law, as is paying for sex with someone who has been exploited.
Ian Kelcey, a British criminal lawyer who specializes in cases involving sex offenses, said that the evidence bar to bring a prosecution for the allegations reported by Ms. Giuffre would have been high.
“It’s not an offense in English law for a man to have sexual relations with a woman who is over 16,” he said. “It may be an offense if that person has been trafficked, but that requires a lot of proof.”
Mr. Kelcey added that proving a lack of consent was difficult “if you’re in a situation of, ‘He said, she said,’ which is very often the case.”
It would be “nigh on impossible” to bring a prosecution for the allegations reported by Ms. Giuffre after her death, Mr. Kelcey said.
On Feb. 20, the Metropolitan Police announced that, after the release of the latest Epstein files, it was assessing documents showing that London airports “may have been used to facilitate human trafficking and sexual exploitation” by Mr. Epstein. The police force said it was also speaking to Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor’s former royal protection officers about anything they may have witnessed.
The police said this week that it had “not received any additional evidence that would support reopening the investigation” into Ms. Giuffre’s allegations, adding, “As with any other matter, should new and relevant information be brought to our attention, including in any information resulting from the release of material in the U.S., this will be assessed.”