Starmer rejects calls to resign over Mandelson appointment as pressure
builds
[April 18, 2026]
By JILL LAWLESS
LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Friday resisted
demands he resign over revelations that his scandal-tainted pick for
U.K. ambassador to Washington was appointed despite failing security
checks.
Starmer says he was not informed that the Foreign Office had overruled
the recommendation of security officials in early 2025 not to give Peter
Mandelson the job. Many considered Mandelson a risky appointment because
of his past friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and
alleged business links to Russia and China.
Starmer said he was “absolutely furious” that he had been kept in the
dark, calling it staggering” and “unforgivable.” He said he would “set
out all the relevant facts in true transparency” to Parliament on
Monday.
The top Foreign Office civil servant, Olly Robbins, took the fall for
the decision and resigned.
The PM's job is in peril
The prime minister's job has been endangered by his fateful decision to
appoint Mandelson, a trade expert and elder statesman of the governing
Labour Party, as envoy to the Trump administration. It was a calculated
risk that backfired spectacularly, and could bring down the prime
minister.
Opposition politicians expressed disbelief that Starmer could have been
unaware Mandelson had failed security vetting. Starmer said he only
found out on Tuesday of this week.
Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the prime minister, said Friday
that “the recommendation was to not appoint Peter Mandelson to the
role,” and that the Foreign Office ignored it. He said that was
“astonishing,” but within the rules.
He said no government minister had been told of the security assessment.
People familiar with the process said that is standard practice because
of the sensitive personal information involved.
Jones said the checks, carried out by a department known as U.K.
Security Vetting, “go through financial, personal, sexual, religious and
other types of background information, and that is why it is kept
extremely private on a portal that only a few people have access to.”
Opposition Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch said claims the prime
minister didn’t know were “completely preposterous.”
“This story does not stack up. The prime minister is taking us for
fools,” she told the BBC. “All roads lead to a resignation.”
Ed Davey, the leader of the centrist Liberal Democrats, said Starmer
“must go” if he misled Parliament and lied to the British public. The
Lib Dems asked the prime minister's ethics adviser to investigate
whether Starmer broke the government code of conduct by misleading
Parliament.
Starmer has repeatedly insisted that “due process” was followed in the
appointment, which was announced in December 2024. Mandelson took up the
Washington post in February 2025, after undergoing security vetting.
Mandelson had known Epstein links
Mandelson’s expertise as a former European Union trade chief was
considered a major asset in trying to persuade the Trump administration
not to slap heavy tariffs on British goods, and seemed to pay off when
the countries struck a trade deal in May 2025.
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British Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaks as Starmer hosts social
media industry leaders to discuss child safety online Thursday,
April 16, 2026, in London. (Leon Neal/Pool Photo via AP)
But documents released by the government in March, after being
forced to by Parliament, showed Starmer ignored red flags raised by
his staff about the appointment. He was warned that Mandelson’s
friendship with Epstein, who died in prison in 2019, exposed the
government to “reputational risk.”
Starmer fired Mandelson in September 2025 after evidence emerged
that he had lied about the extent of his links to Epstein.
The release of millions of pages of Epstein-related documents by the
U.S. Department of Justice in January reveled more and showed
Mandelson’s relationship with the financier continued even after
Epstein’s conviction in 2008 for sexual offenses involving a minor.
Emails suggested Mandelson had passed on sensitive, and potentially
market-moving, government information to Epstein in 2009 after the
global financial crisis.
British police subsequently launched a criminal probe. Mandelson was
arrested on Feb. 23 on suspicion of misconduct in public office.
He has been released without bail conditions as the police
investigation continues. Mandelson has previously denied wrongdoing
and hasn’t been charged. He does not face allegations of sexual
misconduct.
King Charles III’s brother, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly
known as Prince Andrew, is also under police investigation over his
friendship with Epstein. He, too, has been arrested but not charged.
Starmer's recent setbacks
The prime minister has apologized to the British public and to
Epstein’s victims for believing what he has termed “Mandelson’s
lies.”
The Mandelson revelations are among a string of setbacks Starmer has
faced since he led the Labour Party to a landslide election victory
in July 2024. He has struggled to deliver promised economic growth,
repair tattered public services and ease the cost of living, and has
been beset by missteps and U-turns.
The prime minister defused a potential crisis in February, when some
Labour lawmakers called for him to resign over the Mandelson
appointment. But he could face a leadership challenge after local
and regional elections on May 7, in which Labour is expected to do
badly.
Despite his struggles on the homefront, Starmer has been praised for
his work on the world stage. He has played a key role in maintaining
European support for Ukraine, and was in Paris on Friday to host a
summit alongside French President Emmanuel Macron on reopening the
Strait of Hormuz, the oil shipping route choked off by the
U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.
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