UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer called on Monday for Britain’s former ambassador to the US, Peter Mandelson, to be removed from parliament’s upper chamber after new reports emerged of his ties to the late US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Mandelson, a prominent figure in Starmer’s Labour Party for decades, was fired from his envoy role last year after previous revelations about his connections to Epstein.
Late on Sunday, Mandelson – a former minister under Labour’s 1997-2007 prime minister, Tony Blair – quit the centre-left party after more documents were released, saying he did not wish to cause “further embarrassment”.
The newly released documents from the US Justice Department showed Mandelson pictured in his underwear, an image that circulated widely in British media on Monday.
The Financial Times said the files also showed that accounts connected to Mandelson had received US$75,000 from Epstein, prompting opposition politicians to call for a full investigation.
