13 September 2025 , 19:03
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Kemi Badenoch has accused Sir Keir Starmer of “lying to the whole country” about his knowledge of Lord Mandelson’s involvement with Jeffrey Epstein.
The Tory leader said that the Prime Minister had “very serious questions to answer” and must come clean about who in No 10 “knew what, and when” about the former US ambassador’s relationship with the paedophile financier.
In a social media post she accused Sir Keir of misleading the Commons – a charge which, if proven, usually results in a minister’s resignation or sacking.
Mrs. Badenoch was commenting on reports that No 10 was informed about emails between Lord Mandelson and Epstein, who died in 2019, before Wednesday’s PMQs.
At that session, the Prime Minister defended his then ambassador, only to sack him the next day when the contents of the messages were made public.
In a statement, Downing Street said Lord Mandelson had been sacked “in light of additional information”.
Mrs Badenoch said: “If No10 had those emails for 48 hours before acting, it means [Sir Keir] lied at PMQs and ministers lied again about new additional information.
“These are yet more errors of judgment. The Prime Minister has very serious questions to answer. The only way to clear this up is full transparency about who knew what, and when.”
Mandelson sacked as ambassador
Sir Keir sacked Lord Mandelson on Thursday morning after reading the leaked emails on Wednesday night, according to reports.
However, a 2,000-word email detailing a cache of emails between Lord Mandelson and Epstein had been sent to the Foreign Office and passed to No 10 as early as Tuesday.
Mrs Badenoch’s intervention came as Labour MPs turned on Morgan McSweeney, Sir Keir’s powerful chief of staff.
Backbenchers have criticised the Prime Minister’s right-hand man after learning Downing Street officials were aware of Lord Mandelson’s emails to Epstein, while Sir Keir publicly defended the peer.
Olivia Blake, the Labour MP raised concerns about “deep failings” in communication between the Prime Minister and his closest aides.
The Sheffield Hallam MP told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: “Any operation that fails to tell the Prime Minister when something as substantial as those emails are presented to them clearly has deep failings.
“Whoever’s gatekeeping the information to the Prime Minister needs to stop – they need to be getting information to him much earlier.
“We saw through the welfare reforms that they did the same again. They didn’t tell Keir, they didn’t tell the Prime Minister how bad it was on the back benches.
“So he was putting statements out saying: ‘Oh, some people can sound off.’ Well, the strength of feeling in the PLP was much, much deeper than that.
“And again, I just think that whoever’s gatekeeping the information to the Prime Minister needs to stop.”
‘It should not have happened’
Barry Gardiner MP, the Labour backbencher, said the scandal “should not have been allowed to happen” on the BBC’s Newsnight programme on Friday evening.
Asked about Mr McSweeney, who has long faced criticism from the Left of the Labour Party for being seen as a Right-tilted powerful hand in Downing Street, Mr Gardiner said: “I won’t discuss personalities.
“All I will say is I think that actually the Prime Minister needs to make sure that he has people around him who are prepared to tell him what is actually going on and not simply what they want to tell him or what they think he wants to hear.”
Mr McSweeney, who is close to Lord Mandelson, is known to have pushed hard for him to get the job in the face of concerns about his suitability, and is being blamed for the delay in sacking him when his position became untenable this week.
He was said in one report to be the final holdout among Sir Keir’s advisers, insisting Downing Street needed to defend Lord Mandelson when everyone else said he had to go.
Left-wing backbencher Clive Lewis said in a post on X: “Mandelson may have gone. But the network that put him there and the rot he embodied, has not.
“That culture is alive and well and Labour will never prosper whilst it’s still in place.”
Mandelson may have gone.
— Clive Lewis MP (@labourlewis) September 11, 2025
But the network that put him there & the rot he embodied, has not.
The revolving doors, the corporate cosiness, the bending of politics toward wealth & status.
That culture is alive and well & Labour will never prosper whilst it’s still in place. https://t.co/kkkWhmj3wh
Mr Lewis became the first MP from Sir Keir’s party to call for the Prime Minister to go on Friday amid a scandal-ridden start to what Downing Street is calling “Phase Two” of the Labour Government.
Mr Lewis claimed on the BBC’s The Week In Westminster programme that the Prime Minister “feels that he’s lost control”.
He said: “You see a Labour Prime Minister who feels that he’s lost control within the first year.
“We don’t have the luxury of carrying on this way with someone who I think increasingly, I’m sorry to say, just doesn’t seem up to the job.”
Sir Keir Starmer defended Lord Mandelson in Parliament despite it being claimed that Downing Street knew of the damning emails between the latter and Jeffrey Epstein.
Government officials were sent details of the cache of emails on Tuesday, a day before the Prime Minister told the Commons he had confidence in the then ambassador to the US. In the messages, Lord Mandelson urged his “best pal” Epstein to apply for early release after his conviction for child sex offences.
The Times reported that the disclosure contained a number of the more shocking email exchanges between the peer and the paedophile.
The newspaper also claimed there was already growing disquiet within No 10 about the emails at this point, but that their authenticity was not certain until Wednesday.
It was not until Thursday that Lord Mandelson was sacked, after days of revelations about his friendship with one of the world’s most notorious paedophiles.
Those revelations come as the Prime Minister faces pressure from Labour MPs over his political judgment and handling of the scandal.
The Tories said Downing Street had questions to answer over what Mr McSweeney knew when, and whether he had pushed Sir Keir to publicly defend Lord Mandelson.
Alex Burghart, the shadow Cabinet Office minister, said: “Who in No 10 knew those details? Did Morgan McSweeney?
“Did he advise Starmer to express confidence in his ‘mentor’ Lord Mandelson at PMQs? These questions aren’t going away.”
The dismissal of Lord Mandelson leaves the UK without a permanent ambassador to the US, ahead of Donald Trump’s arrival for the state visit on Tuesday.
Politics Editor