Embattled British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s chief of staff resigned on Sunday, February 8th, over the appointment of Peter Mandelson as ambassador to Washington despite links to U.S. convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“After careful reflection, I have decided to resign from the government. The decision to appoint Peter Mandelson was wrong. He has damaged our party, our country and trust in politics itself,” Morgan McSweeney, Downing Street’s chief of staff, said in a statement. “I advised the Prime Minister to make that appointment and I take full responsibility for that advice,” he added.
Documents released on January 30th by the U.S. Justice Department appear to show that Mandelson allegedly leaked confidential UK government information to financier Epstein when he was a British minister, including during the 2008 financial crisis. The revelation has placed intense pressure on Starmer and triggered a police investigation into 72-year-old Mandelson for alleged misconduct in a public office.
Starmer praised McSweeney in a statement, giving his “dedication, loyalty and leadership” a good deal of the credit for Labor winning “a landslide majority.”
