- The Prime Minister says he will not “walk away” from his mandate.
- His two main advisors resigned a few days later over the Epstein matter.
- Senior ministers are backing him amid a deepening crisis.
LONDON: UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer insisted on Monday he would not “walk away” after a prominent ally demanded the prime minister resign for embroiling the British government in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.
Senior ministers have backed him through the most serious crisis yet of his stuttering 19-month tenure as prime minister, as a growing far right challenges him in the polls.
“Having fought so hard for the opportunity to change our country, I am not prepared to walk away from my mandate and my responsibility,” Starmer told Labor MPs at a crucial meeting where he was greeted with applause.
The embattled prime minister was defiant, insisting he had “won every fight I have been in”.
Earlier on Monday, Scottish Labor leader Anas Sarwar called on Starmer to resign for appointing Peter Mandelson as US ambassador despite knowing he had maintained links to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“The distraction must end and the leadership in Downing Street must change,” Sarwar told a news conference in Glasgow, becoming the most senior Labor politician to publicly urge Starmer to leave.
Several cabinet ministers backed the prime minister after several days of ominous silence, including his deputy David Lammy, foreign minister Yvette Cooper and finance minister Rachel Reeves.
Left-wing figure Angela Rayner and Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, both seen as possible replacements for Starmer, said they had “full support” for their leader.
Departures
Earlier on Monday, Starmer lost his second top aide in two days when his communications chief, Tim Allan, resigned just months after taking the job.
On Sunday, Starmer’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, resigned for advising Starmer to make Mandelson’s controversial appointment.
McSweeney’s departure deprives the embattled UK leader of his closest adviser and the man who helped Starmer drag the Labor Party back to the center after succeeding left-wing leader Jeremy Corbyn in 2020.
Starmer has had several communications chiefs in his short tenure, and staff departures, policy changes and missteps are an increasing hallmark of his administration, taking a toll on his popularity.
Conservative opposition leader Kemi Badenoch told BBC radio that Starmer’s position was “untenable”, while the UK’s reformist far-right leader Nigel Farage said the leader’s mandate was “coming to an end”.
Labor has trailed Farage’s anti-immigration party by double-digit margins in polls over the past year.
The challenge of the extreme right
On the streets of London, James Lyon, 30, who works in the creative industries, said: “We have been disappointed with your judgment in appointing Peter Mandelson.”
Anil Passi, 53, owner of an IT company, said Starner should not resign.
“He supported someone in good faith, and that person let him down… It’s a little unfair to push him over the edge for that reason.”
In his speech to Labor MPs, Starmer described the fight against Reform UK, which hopes to make progress in key upcoming local elections, as the “fight of our lives”.
Starmer fired Mandelson in September last year after documents released by the US Congress revealed the extent of Mandelson’s relationship with Epstein following the financier’s 2008 conviction.
Epstein committed suicide in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking.
Documents released on January 30 by the US government reignited the controversy and appear to show that Mandelson leaked confidential UK government information to Epstein when he was a British minister, including during the 2008 financial crisis.
police investigation
Police are investigating Mandelson, 72, for misconduct in public office and raided two of his properties on Friday. He has not been arrested.
Starmer, a former human rights lawyer and top prosecutor in England and Wales, apologized to Epstein’s victims and accused Mandelson of lying about the extent of his ties to the financier during the vetting for his appointment in Washington.
The government will publish tens of thousands of emails, messages and documents about Mandelson’s appointment, potentially increasing pressure on the prime minister and other senior ministers.
Several backbench Labor MPs, mostly on the left of the party who have never been sympathetic to Starmer, have suggested the prime minister should follow McSweeney out the door.
But no clear successor has emerged and party rules make the challenge difficult.
The party also faces a crucial by-election on February 28 and local elections in May, including in Scotland, where Labor is expected to lose to the pro-independence Scottish National Party.
The next general elections will not be held until 2029.
