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Labour MPs hammer Starmer over baffling decisions on now-departed Mandelson

It’s been a rough week for Keir Starmer and Peter Mandelson, our now former-ambassador to the US.

Mandelson gone – but evidence still piling up

First, a US House committee released a “trove of documents” which included a letter from Mandelson to his “best pal” Jeffry Epstein, the convicted sex offender. Also this week, it was revealed that then-business secretary Mandelson attempted to involve Epstein in a deal to sell a nationalised UK business to a US bank. Next, Mandelson gave an interview in which he awkwardly failed to justify continuing his friendship with the then-convicted Epstein.

People thought this avalanche of shame would mean Starmer had to force Mandelson out. Unlike last week when Angela Rayner went, however, the PM stood by his man. And then came more leaks:

In response, Labour MPs came out to hammer Starmer on his poor judgement. They had good reason to do so, as Mandelson’s relationship with Epstein was no secret when Starmer brought him into the fold. They also contributed towards the dam finally breaking, with Starmer sacking Mandelson some 15 minutes after we finished this now-updated article:

Labour vs Starmer

Before we cover what these MPs said, we’d like to shout out our friends at Declassified UK, who have once again used their powers of premonition to predict a future mainstream news cycle:

The first MP we saw criticising Starmer was Richard Burgon, who had this to say:

As the old saying goes, the best time to sack Mandelson was when he first came sniffing around for a job; the second best time was now.

Former shadow chancellor John McDonnell highlighted that he’d been warning about Mandelson for some time:

Many were warning Starmer this, but he didn’t listen, and the mainstream media didn’t press him, so this is where we ended up – with everything coming out as one big mega-scandal.

Nadia Whittome has this to say:

Clive Lewis described the incident as a ‘stain’, and used the scandal as an opportunity to argue that Labour needs a root and branch rethink of how it does politics:

Many others commented on the poor decisions (to put it mildly) of Mandelson and Starmer:

Can this go on?

As to why Starmer kept Mandelson in place for so long, people online had thoughts:


We’re not saying the above tweet is accurate, but it did make a lot more sense than the official line, which was that Starmer thought Mandelson was a competent and trustworthy politician.

Thankfully, Starmer has now proven all the conspiracy theories wrong, and done what any normal politician would have done 12 months ago. Saying that, a normal politician wouldn’t have given Mandelson the job in the first place, but still, better late than never.

Featured image via Number 10 – Flickr /  Richard Burgon – Wikimedia  /  Chris McAndrew – Wikimedia  /  David Woolfall – Wikimedia  /  Roger Harris – Wikimedia

By Willem Moore

This post was originally published on Canary.