UK foreign office to review pay-off to Epstein-linked US envoy

Documents released on January 30 by the US Justice Department appear to show that Mandelson allegedly leaked confidential UK government information to the late Epstein when he was a British minister, including during the 2008 financial crisis.

The revelation has placed intense pressure on Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer and triggered a police investigation into party insider Mandelson, 72, for alleged misconduct in a public office.

The Foreign Office said in a statement it had launched a review into Mandelson's severance payment "in light of further information that has now been revealed and the ongoing police investigation".

Cabinet minister Pat McFadden insisted Starmer should remain in office despite his "terrible mistake" in appointing Mandelson.

The close Starmer ally told broadcasters the party should stick with the prime minister.

"He (Starmer) should be realistic and accept that this has been a terrible story, that this appointment was a terrible mistake," McFadden, the Work and Pensions Secretary, told BBC television.

He said the real blame lay "squarely with Peter Mandelson", who put himself forward for the job despite knowing the extent of his relationship with Epstein.

- Pivotal figure -

Starmer's deputy, David Lammy, became the first cabinet minister to appear to distance himself from the premier, according to a report in the Sunday Telegraph.

The minister had not been in favour of appointing Mandelson, a pivotal figure in British politics for decades, due to his known links to Epstein, the report quoted friends of Lammy as saying.

Starmer's Labour Party took power just over 18 months ago in a landslide election victory.

But it has been trailing Nigel Farage's anti-immigrant Reform UK as the government has come under fire over immigration, economic growth and the cost of living crisis.

Reform UK has led by double-digit figures in the polls for the past year.

Mandelson, also a former European Union trade commissioner, stood down from parliament's unelected upper chamber, the House of Lords, earlier this week.

Starmer fired him in September following an earlier release of Epstein documents.

The ex-envoy was one of numerous prominent figures again embarrassed by last week's latest revelations of ties to financier Epstein, who died in jail in 2019 while facing charges of alleged sex trafficking.

US officials ruled Epstein's death a suicide.

A spokesperson for law firm Mishcon de Reya, representing Mandelson, said the latter "regrets, and will regret until to his dying day, that he believed Epstein's lies about his criminality". 

"Lord Mandelson did not discover the truth about Epstein until after his death in 2019. He is profoundly sorry that powerless and vulnerable women and girls were not given the protection they deserved," the law firm said.

har/gil