Prime Minister Keir Starmer says former envoy Peter Mandelson should no longer hold a seat in the upper house of Parliament.
Published on February 3, 2026
Police in the United Kingdom said they were looking into allegations of misconduct in public office following revelations that London’s former ambassador to Washington leaked confidential government information to the late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Monday’s announcement by the Metropolitan Police comes after investigative files released by US authorities revealed that Peter Mandelson shared government plans with Epstein while he was a British minister.
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Mandelson, who served as business secretary under former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, briefed Epstein on London’s planned asset sales and tax changes in 2009, as well as plans for a 500 billion euro ($590 billion) single currency bailout in 2010, according to emails released Friday by the U.S. Department of Justice.
“Following this publication and subsequent media reports, the Met has received a number of reports relating to allegations of misconduct in public office. The reports will all be reviewed to determine whether they meet the criminal threshold for investigation,” Metropolitan Police Commander Ella Marriott said in a statement.
“As with any matter, if new and relevant information comes to our attention, we will evaluate it and investigate as appropriate,” Marriott added.
The Metropolitan Police did not name Mandelson, but his statement came after the leader of the pro-independence Scottish National Party said he had written to the police commissioner urging him to investigate the former ambassador for alleged misconduct in public office.
Earlier on Monday, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced an investigation into Mandelson’s links to Epstein.
Starmer, who sacked Mandelson as London’s top diplomat in Washington last year after the emergence of correspondence detailing his links to Epstein, also said the former minister should lose his lifetime appointment to the upper house of Britain’s parliament.
On Sunday, Mandelson resigned from the ruling Labor Party, which he helped lead back to electoral dominance in the 1990s, citing his wish to avoid causing further embarrassment to his colleagues.
In another fallout in the UK on Monday, the charity launched by Sarah Ferguson, the ex-wife of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, announced it would close “for the foreseeable future” amid revelations about her friendly relationship with Epstein.
“Our president Sarah Ferguson and the board of directors have agreed that with regret the association will soon close its doors for the foreseeable future,” a spokesperson said in a statement, without elaborating on the reasons for the closure.
Separately, on Monday, the U.S. Department of Justice said it had removed thousands of files related to Epstein from the Internet after lawyers representing some of his alleged victims said their identities were revealed because of insufficient redactions in the latest release of documents.
