KEIR Stamer has been told he must sack Peter Mandelson after the Labour peer’s relationship with his “best pal,” the late convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, was revealed by US lawmakers.
Starmer has been told his own reputation is “now on the line” if he doesn’t fire Mandelson from his role as UK ambassador to the US after he described Epstein as an “intelligent, sharp-witted man”, who “parachuted” into his life, in a message for the paedophile’s 50th birthday.
On Monday, Democrats in Congress released copies of the so-called “birthday book” after the documents were subpoenaed by the House Oversight Committee last month.
In the birthday book, the Labour grandee wrote multiple messages of support and it has since been revealed that Mandelson also told Epstein that “your friends stay with you and love you” while the billionaire was on the hook for paedophilia offences in 2008.
In July, Starmer’s government blocked the publication of the UK Government’s archived correspondence from 2002, in which Mandelson urged the then Labour Party prime minister Tony Blair to meet with Epstein.
The documents, which would otherwise have been made public as standard after 20 years, were blocked from being released by Starmer's Government, The Times has reported.
SNP MP Stephen Flynn has now urged the Prime Minister to sack Mandelson “without further delay” and has urged the Labour leader to come clean about what he knew when, and whether he sanctioned blocking the publication of the documents.
“UK Government documents shouldn't be hidden from the public just because they are damaging to the Labour Party,” Flynn said.
“By backing Peter Mandelson to the hilt, the Prime Minister’s own reputation is now on the line.
“Keir Starmer is always quick to throw his colleagues under the bus when it suits him – so it is staggering that he has aligned himself so closely with Lord Mandelson, particularly given the increasingly precarious nature of the Prime Minister's own position.”
Leaked emails first reported by The Sun show that Mandelson told Epstein in 2008: “I think the world of you and I feel hopeless and furious about what has happened.
“I can still barely understand it. It just could not happen in Britain. You have to be incredibly resilient, fight for early release and be philosophical about it as much as you can.”
An email between Epstein and Mandelson’s private email addresses went on: “Everything can be turned into an opportunity and that you will come through it and be stronger for it.
"The whole thing has been years of torture and now you have to show the world how big a person you are, and how strong.”
Mandelson has been fighting for his job this week after the birthday book, compiled by convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell for Epstein’s 50th in 2003, showed him calling the paedophile his “best pal”.
In the book Mandelson wrote that after Epstein appeared in his life, he “would spend many hours just waiting for him to turn up”.
Flynn added that voters were promised change and a better future but, under Starmer’s premiership, the UK has gone from “bad to worse”.
He said: “The Labour Government is caked in constant chaos and sleaze, the cost of living is soaring, unemployment is at a four-year high, child poverty is at record levels, the UK economy has been downgraded and public finances have deteriorated.
“People in Scotland deserve so much better than this.”
Starmer has stood by his appointment of Mandelson as US ambassador, as at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, the Labour leader said that “due process was followed” during the process.
Downing Street, meanwhile, repeatedly evaded questions on how much the Prime Minister knew about the former Labour minister’s association with Epstein at the time of his appointment.
