LONDON – Downing Street was on Sunday night scrambling to protect Keir Starmer as it emerged No. 10 was aware of the fatal allegation against Lord Mandelson days before he was sacked.
The Daily Mail understands that No 10 knew at the start of last week that the Labour grandee had suggested paedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s first conviction was wrongful and should be challenged.
However, sources insisted that the prime minister was not informed before he expressed confidence in the then-US ambassador in the Commons on Wednesday.
It came amid a deepening revolt over Sir Keir’s handling of the crisis, and growing speculation that the PM could be ousted before the next general election.
Mutinous MPs yesterday warned that Sir Keir was ‘supping in the last-chance saloon’, while the Tories accused him of going ‘missing in action’ over the scandal.
The prime minister is expected to break his ‘damning silence’ on the crisis yesterday, but on Sunday night Downing Street would not reveal who kept the information about Lord Mandelson from him.
In the worst week of his premiership, Sir Keir sacked the Labour peer from his post as ambassador to the US.
It came after emails were published showing that Lord Mandelson had sent supportive messages to Epstein even as he faced jail for sex offences.
Meanwhile, it has emerged that Downing Street became aware of the damning correspondence today – two days before he was sacked.
The Daily Mail can reveal No. 10 was told then that the emails contained suggestions by Lord Mandelson that Epstein’s first conviction was wrongful and should be challenged.
However, sources insisted that the information, which came in a 2 000-word memo from Bloomberg News which was seeking comment from Lord Mandelson, was not shared with Sir Keir, who told MPs during Wednesday’s Prime Minister’s Questions that he had ‘confidence’ in his man in Washington.
Meanwhile, Foreign Office permanent secretary Sir Oliver Robbins, formerly Theresa May’s bungling Brexit chief, was seeking a response from Lord Mandelson about the emails, which only came later – on Wednesday afternoon.
Last Thursday morning, the Foreign Office said the ‘suggestion that Jeffrey Epstein’s first conviction was wrongful and should be challenged is new information’ and that ‘in light of that, he has been withdrawn as ambassador with immediate effect’.
Leave a comment