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Dear Petie, we will not f*ck off until you and your buddies do

New Labour’s disgraced “prince of darkness” Peter Mandelson has wiggled his way into a job as British ambassador to the US. But his relationship with infamous sex trafficker and child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who reportedly called him “Petie“, is not leaving him behind. And nor should it.

Peter ‘Petie’ Mandelson

Mandelson was recently very tetchy about this. He told the Financial Times that he regretted meeting Epstein, but then added:

I’m not going to go into this. It’s an FT obsession and frankly you can all fuck off. OK?

A 2019 report from the JP Morgan bank found that Epstein had seemingly had “a particularly close relationship” with Mandelson.

Critics have previously highlighted how former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn ridiculously got into more trouble for how he pronounced Epstein’s name than Mandelson did for his intimate connection to the billionaire criminal. Maybe that’s because of his previously stated commitment to “work every single day to bring forward the end of his [Corbyn’s] tenure in office”.

It’s not just the Epstein link we need to remember, though

As Declassified UK has pointed out recently, there are even more reasons we should be wary of Peter Mandelson’s continuing role in top-tier British politics. A co-architect of Tony Blair’s Thatcherite ‘New Labour‘ project, Mandelson “has a long history of favouring corporations in often scandalous situations“, it said. And currently, he:

co-owns a business that helps companies “see opportunities in politics, regulation and public policy”.

His Global Counsel lobbying company built:

a lucrative business from his political contacts built up while a minister under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

Meanwhile, he has shown his dedication to defending Israel’s settler-colonial project, even during its recent genocide in Gaza. And he’s very open to interacting with the pro-Israel lobby.

In short, he’ll fit right in with the billionaire genocide-lovers ruling the US. And that’s very far from what we need right now, at a time when the US is openly supporting genocide and single-handedly bringing down the international legal system. So we absolutely shouldn’t stop questioning Mandleson’s connection to Jeffrey Epstein. Nor should we stop calling out the slimy corporatism of the despicable establishment he represents.

Featured image via the Canary

By Ed Sykes

This post was originally published on Canary.