United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer has emerged rattled but ultimately unscathed after a day and night of drama during which a key member of his Labour Party called for him to resign over revelations about a former ambassador to the US, Peter Mandelson, in the Jeffrey Epstein files.
Starmer has faced more than a week of mounting pressure since the release of the latest tranche of documents from the US Department of Justice relating to the criminal cases against the late sex offender. They revealed that Mandelson had maintained a close friendship with the disgraced financier even after Epstein had pleaded guilty to solicitation of sex with a minor and was jailed in 2008.
They include documents and emails that suggest Mandelson may have received payments from Epstein and passed sensitive information to him during the 2008-2009 financial crisis.
Since then, Starmer has admitted that he knew of the pair’s friendship when he appointed Mandelson as ambassador but said the peer had lied about the extent of it. The affair has caused outrage in parliament. Two key members of Starmer’s inner circle have resigned and a third is under pressure to go. On Monday, Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar called for the prime minister to do the same.
While Starmer’s position has been shored up for now by a rally of support from his cabinet on Monday night, just how badly has this affair shaken his government?
Why did Anas Sarwar call for Starmer to resign?
Sarwar said at a news conference early on Monday afternoon that he had called Starmer and told him it was time for him to resign. “I spoke to the prime minister earlier today, and I think it’s safe to say he and I disagreed,” Sarwar said.
He said “too many mistakes” had been made in relation to the appointment of Mandelson.
“The distraction needs to end, and the leadership in Downing Street has to change,” Sarwar said as he became the first Labour heavyweight to stand against the prime minister.
While Sarwar said he believed Starmer to be a “decent man”, the fury over the Epstein files had severely damaged the government’s support and wrecked its chances in the upcoming Scottish parliament elections. Opinion polls put Scottish Labour some distance behind the Scottish National Party, followed by the far-right Reform party, led by Nigel Farage.
But cabinet members came out in support of Starmer, ultimately ending the coup that never was. Angela Rayner, former deputy prime minister and a senior member of the Labour Party, was the first to show him support. She said in a post on X that while she did not defend Starmer’s judgement, “the worst possible response [to the scandal] would be to play party politics or factional games.”
“I urge all my colleagues to come together, remember our values and put them into practice as a team,” she wrote on X. “The Prime Minister has my full support in leading us to that end.”
Within hours, nearly every minister had followed suit. Wes Streeting, the health secretary, urged people to “give Keir a chance”. Pat McFadden, the work and pensions secretary, said he hoped the prime minister would stay on, and Douglas Alexander, Scotland secretary, said he “respected” Sarwar’s stance but backed the prime minister.
On Monday night, Starmer addressed more than 400 MPs and peers at a Labour Party meeting. “I have won every fight I’ve ever been in. I fought to change the Labour Party to allow us to win an election again,” he told them.
“But I’ll tell you this, after having fought so hard for the chance to change our country, I’m not prepared to walk away from my mandate and my responsibility to my country or to plunge us into chaos as others have done.”
Who has resigned from Starmer’s team and why?
Two key figures have already resigned, and a third is under pressure to do so, UK media has reported.
Amid growing outrage over the new revelations about Mandelson and Epstein, Starmer’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, resigned on Sunday, taking “full responsibility” for advising the prime minister to appoint Mandelson to the ambassadorship, which he took up in 2025, despite the risks.
“The decision to appoint Mandelson was wrong,” McSweeney said. “He has damaged our party. … I advised the prime minister to make that appointment and I take full responsibility for that.”
Mandelson was dismissed from the post in September after serving seven months after the UK daily The Sun obtained other emails between him and Epstein that showed the depth of their friendship.
After the release of the latest tranche of Epstein documents on January 30, Mandelson resigned from the Labour Party and the House of Lords.
Tim Allan, Starmer’s communications chief, resigned on Monday, saying he was leaving to pave the way for a “new No 10 team” to be built as Starmer tries to reset his government.
Allan, who founded the Portland Communications firm specialising in reputation management, had been in the job for only five months, and Starmer is now looking to hire his fifth communications chief since taking office in 2024.
Chris Wormald, the cabinet secretary and senior-most civil servant in Downing Street, is also reportedly under pressure to resign and is said to be currently negotiating his exit from the role, which he has been in for less than a year.
The UK’s Guardian newspaper reported that some people close to Starmer view him as a “disastrous” appointment.
What did the Epstein files reveal about Mandelson?
The latest release of files showed Mandelson maintained his relationship with Epstein after the latter was jailed in 2008.
They also suggested Mandelson received payments from the late financier and may have shared market-sensitive information with him that was of financial interest to Epstein.
Leaks of sensitive information by Mandelson allegedly took place in 2009 while he was serving as the UK’s business secretary.
The UK police have launched a criminal investigation over suspected misconduct in public office linked to Mandelson’s relationship with Epstein.
In one of the emails revealed in the most recent tranche of documents released from the US Justice Department, Mandelson told Epstein to “fight for early release” shortly before he was sentenced in 2008.
“I think the world of you,” Mandelson told Epstein, adding about his prosecution: “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.”
How damaging has this all been for Starmer?
Starmer has apologised publicly for appointing Mandelson as ambassador to the US despite knowing of his ties – but not the extent of them, he said – to the disgraced financier.
“None of us knew the depth and the darkness of that relationship,” Starmer said on Thursday as he apologised to Epstein’s victims.
“I am sorry – sorry for what was done to you, sorry that so many people with power failed you, sorry for having believed Mandelson’s lies and appointing him.”
But this has not been enough to let him off the hook entirely, experts said.
Tim Bale, a professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, said the scandal has been hugely damaging for Starmer. “A more popular PM might have been able to ride it out, but he was already facing a good deal of hostility from voters before it blew up,” Bale told Al Jazeera. “He’s managed so far to hold on to his cabinet, but he’s completely lost the trust of the electorate – and that’s hard to get back.”
Bale said “people are disgusted by” Starmer’s decision to appoint Mandelson “despite knowing that he’d stayed friends with Epstein after he’d been convicted”.
Can Starmer’s leadership still be challenged?
While Starmer has survived Monday night, his position is still weak with low approval ratings, experts said.
Labour is expected to suffer losses in crucial Scottish elections in May. A parliamentary by-election is also due on February 26.
“The immediate danger [to Starmer] is that [Labour] suffers catastrophic losses in a by-election and then a big set of elections in May,” Bale said. “That will reignite calls for Starmer to resign and, if he doesn’t, a challenge from one or more of his colleagues.”
Among the top runners to replace Starmer are Rayner, his former deputy prime minister who resigned from the cabinet last year over a tax scandal.
A website pitching Rayner as leader, angelaforleader.co.uk, went live in January briefly, The Guardian newspaper reported. Rayner has denied any links to the website.
Another politician gearing up to replace Starmer is Wes Streeting, the health secretary.
Streeting, 43, has also been called out for his ties with Mandelson. In a bid to distance himself from the former ambassador, Streeting this week shared private chats he had with Mandelson that questioned the government’s growth plan.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, 45, is another possible successor to Starmer. She has grown popular among several right-aligned leaders of the Labour Party with her moves to tighten border controls and crack down on unauthorised immigration.
What other issues has Labour faced under Starmer?
The Labour Party swept to power in July 2024, ending nearly 14 years of Conservative rule. However, the prime minister has since had a difficult time in Downing Street.
In the 2024 elections, Reform UK, the right-wing, populist, anti-immigration party led by Farage, won just five of the 650 seats in parliament. However, it has gone on to become one of the best polling British parties. In July, a YouGov poll put Reform in the lead, predicting it could win 271 seats if elections were held then.
In his speech on Monday, Starmer called the challenge posed by the rise of the Reform party, which has won over a number of high-profile defectors from the Conservative Party in recent weeks, “a fight for our lives”.
Starmer is also facing domestic pressure to put a stop to undocumented immigration to the UK. More than 32,000 people tried to cross the English Channel from France in small boats last year. These crossings are dangerous and have resulted in many deaths.
The UK and France have laid the blame on each other for the rising numbers. This led to a “one-in-one-out” migrant deal signed between the UK and France last year, under which the UK returns one migrant to France for each accepted refugee. The scheme has had little success, however, with only a handful of migrants returned.
Starmer himself has dropped in popularity by 20 percentage points from July 2024 to January this year, according to YouGov.
“Reform has obviously spooked some in the Labour Party,” Bale said, adding, however, that Reform is eating into the Conservatives’ base more. “And Labour probably needs to worry more about the Greens and the Liberal Democrats at this stage.”
“The break-up of the two-party duopoly that has dominated British politics for a century is no longer simply an aspiration among challenger parties but an ongoing reality,” Bale said.