Starmer urged to apologise to Epstein victims as MPs debate Mandelson appointment — UK politics live | Politics
Check out our latest products
![[Upgraded] USB Computer /Laptop Speaker with Stereo Sound & Enhanced Bass, Portable Mini Sound Bar for Windows PCs, Desktop Computer and Laptops](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61NAayKmVIL._AC_SL1500_.jpg)
Ed Davey joins Badenoch in saying Starmer should apologise to Epstein’s victims from Mandelson appointment
Davey says MPs should consider the victims of Epstein.
He asks what they would have felt about Donald Trump, a close friend of Epstein, becoming president of the US.
Referring to his decision to boycott the Trump state banquet, he says even if he had gone he would not have had a chance to speak to Trump about this.
But Keir Starmer will get the chance. Davey says Starmer should ask Trump about his relationship with Epstein.
And he says Starmer should apologise to Epstein’s victims for the Mandelson appoinment.
Key events
-
Trump must think British ‘complete plonkers’ over Mandelson affair, Edward Leigh says
-
Ed Davey joins Badenoch in saying Starmer should apologise to Epstein’s victims from Mandelson appointment
-
Badenoch claims Starmer has ‘shrivelled from leadership’ and has ‘no courage, no judgment, no backbone’
-
Badenoch says Starmer should apologise to Epstein’s victims for Mandelson’s appointment
-
Thornberry says Mandelson’s vetting ignored ‘glaring red flag’ of his relationship with Epstein
-
Davis says Mandelson affair example of how ‘culture of turning blind eye to horrendous behaviour endemic’ in top jobs
-
Mandelson ‘subcontracted his conscience for money’, says Davis, in attack on peer’s record as lobbyist
-
David Davis tells MPs Mandelson’s ‘abiding flaws’ should have disqualified him from ambassador’s job
-
MPs hold emergency debate on Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador to US
-
Cooper says Cabinet Office, not Foreign Office, carried out initial propriety checks prior to Mandelson’s appointment
-
Starmer says Hillsborough duty of candour law won’t be watered down, and should be passed ‘as quickly as possible’
-
Yvette Cooper says Israel ground offensive in Gaza City ‘utterly reckless and appalling’
-
Badenoch questions whether Starmer has been ‘honest with public’ about Mandelson sacking
-
Minister says deportations to France under returns deal to start ‘as soon as possible’, as first flight reportedly cancelled
-
Greens welcome defection of three councillors to party from Labour in London
-
Danny Kruger ‘profoundly wrong’ about Tory party being over, Mel Stride claims
-
Met police say they expect to arrest 50 more people following disorder at Tommy Robinson rally
-
Maria Caulfield becomes latest former Tory MP to defect to Reform UK
-
New leftwing party being set up by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana to hold conference in November, it says
-
Google announces £5bn AI investment in UK before Trump visit
-
Lucy Powell has clear lead over Bridget Phillipson in Labour’s deputy leadership contest, poll of members suggests
-
State pension set to rise by more than £500 a year from April, figures suggest
-
UK labour market cools as pay growth slows and job losses rise
-
Starmer to chair cabinet as polling shows only 26% of Labour members approve of his leadership
Trump must think British ‘complete plonkers’ over Mandelson affair, Edward Leigh says
Edward Leigh, the Conservative father of the house, is speaking now.
He says President Trump must think that “we in this country are complete plonkers, frankly, for the way that we have handled all this”.
He says the UK got rid of an ambassador, Karen Pierce, who had a good relationship with Trump.
She was replaced with someone who had been rude about the past. Mandelson managed to build up a good relationship with the president.
But Trump is embarrassed by his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. And now this has been dragged up again, just before a visit that is very important to Trump. And it means there will be “very difficult questions” at the press conference.
Ed Davey joins Badenoch in saying Starmer should apologise to Epstein’s victims from Mandelson appointment
Davey says MPs should consider the victims of Epstein.
He asks what they would have felt about Donald Trump, a close friend of Epstein, becoming president of the US.
Referring to his decision to boycott the Trump state banquet, he says even if he had gone he would not have had a chance to speak to Trump about this.
But Keir Starmer will get the chance. Davey says Starmer should ask Trump about his relationship with Epstein.
And he says Starmer should apologise to Epstein’s victims for the Mandelson appoinment.
Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, is speaking now.
He praises Emily Thornberry for her speech (see 1.32pm), and what she said about the case for select committees being able to scrutinise appointments like Mandelson. Thornerry said scrutiny hearings by select committes were particularly important for political appointees.
Andy McDonald intervenes, and asks if Davey agrees that it is better to have professionals acting as ambassadors, not politicians.
Davey says that is a “very strong point”. He says previous US ambassador Karen Pierce was held “in very high regard” and he says many people think she would be a good replacement.
Florence Eshalomi, the Labour chair of the housing committee, goes next.
As she started her speech, Apsana Begum intervened. She said she was elected as a Labour MP, but had the whip suspended because she rebelled against the whip in favour of getting rid of the two child benefit cap.
She suggested it was wrong for her to be punished for this, while Peter Mandelson has not had the Labour whip suspended in the Lords.
Badenoch ends by saying that Starmer’s judgment has been flawed.
She says Starmer owes it to the country to come clean.
Badenoch says she thinks there are three possible explanations for what happened.
First, there may have been a failure of vetting, she says.
Second, information may have been kept from Starmer, she says.
But she says “the most likely but most worrying” explanation is that Starmer appointed Mandelson despite knowing all about the concerns about his appointment.
Badenoch claims Starmer has ‘shrivelled from leadership’ and has ‘no courage, no judgment, no backbone’
Badenoch says Keir Starmer has failed to show leadership. She says he has “shrivelled” from leadership.
She claims he has shown “no courage, no judgment, no backbone”.
UPDATE: Badenoch said:
It is now also clear that the prime minister knew that there were major concerns when he came to this house just last Wednesday, but instead of taking action, he expressed confidence in him.
Why on earth did he do so? Was he poorly advised, or was it just his own poor judgment, as in every single one of his government scandals to date?
Far from being the decisive man of conscience he promised to be, he has shrivelled from leadership. He has dodged responsibility. He has hidden behind others, just as he’s doing today, and he has come to this house and hidden behind process and lawyerly phrases.
The prime minister has shown no courage, no judgment, no backbone, and if he can’t see it, if they can’t see it, I can assure them that the British public can.
Badenoch says Starmer should apologise to Epstein’s victims for Mandelson’s appointment
Kemi Badenoch, the Tory leader, is speaking now.
It is unusual for an opposition leader to speak in a debate when the PM is not responding. But Badenoch has done this several times in the past, in what might be seen as leading from the front.
She says Keir Starmer need to come clean about what he knew about Mandelson’s Jeffrey Epstein links, and when he found out. She says he must publish all the paperwork about this. And she says he should apologise to the victims of Epstein.
Thornberry says Mandelson’s vetting ignored ‘glaring red flag’ of his relationship with Epstein
Emily Thornberry, the Labour chair of the foreign affairs committee, is speaking now.
She says if her committed had had a proper chance to question Mandelson after he was nominated to be the ambassador, they could have asked him about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.
She mentions the letter recieved from Yvette Cooper (see 12.45pm), which shows that Mandelson was subject to vetting.
She says civil servant appointments are often held up as a result of vetting, sometimes for reasons like someone being born in Belfast.
But in this case the vetting process ignored “the glaring red flag of Lord Mandelson’s relationship with with Epstein”.
Davis says Mandelson affair example of how ‘culture of turning blind eye to horrendous behaviour endemic’ in top jobs
Davis ended his speech with a series of questions.
No 10 claims Mandelson was economical with the truth. Mandelson claims he told the whole truth. Both statements cannot be true. So the questions I pose to the minister are:
Will the government rule out Mandelson being brought back into government? Number 10 refused to rule out giving him another job earlier this week or last week.
If Mandelson withheld information during the vetting process, is he going to lose the Labour whip?
Is he going to have to resign from the House of Lords?
Will Lord Mandelson be receiving compensation, as some reports to the media are suggesting?
Will the prime minister, his chief of staff, his chief of staff, his cabinet secretary and the permanent secretary of Foreign Office, appear before the select committees of house to give evidence.
And will the minister provide the house with the documents required to answer our questions as to who knew what and when? That is the propriety and ethics team report, the developed vetting report, if it exists.
Davis quotes a long-standing Labour MP (not named) who said this affair was an example of how “this culture of turning a blind eye to horrendous behaviour is endemic at the top of society”. Davis said he agreed.
Davis says he does not accept that Mandelson was as good an ambassador as ministers claimed.
He suggests it would have been better if Karen Pierce, the career civil servant who preceeded Mandelson, should have been allowed to stay. Tim Barrow, the former national security adviser, would also have been a better candidate, he says.
Davis is now talking about what happened last week, in the days before Mandelson’s sacking.
He says on Tuesday the PM knew that the Foreign Office was looking into claims about new emails revealing the extent of Mandelson’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.
Morgan McSweeney, the PM’s chief of staff, is said to have spent much of the day talking to Mandelson, he says.
He says the government should say what Keir Starmer was told at this point.
And he asks if the minister responding will accept that Starmer should have been more curious at this point.
Mandelson ‘subcontracted his conscience for money’, says Davis, in attack on peer’s record as lobbyist
Davis is now talking about Mandelson’s links with China.
He says in 2021 Mandelson told the Chinese premier during a lobbying meeting “that the critics of Beijing’s human rights record would be proved wrong”.
And he says that Mandelson was the only Labour peer in the Lords to vote against a proposal saying the government would have to reconsider any trade deal with a country committing genocide. This was aimed at China, he says.
He goes on:
So, frankly, it would appear that Lord Mandelson subcontracted his conscience for money.
Davis is now talking about Mandelson’s links with Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch.
He says Deripaska is a “gangster capitalist” who took control of the Russian aluminium industry.
He says there is evidence in Interpol and American government documents suggesting that Deripaska was involved in murder, bribery, extortion and organised crime. He is “a truly bad man”, Davis says.
As EU trade commissioner, Mandelson accepted hospitality from Deripaska “on multiple occasions over several years”, Davis says, “including visiting him in Moscow, being flown by Deripaska’ private jet to stay at his dacha in Siberia and on his private yacht in the Mediterranean, all while considering whether to give Russian aluminium access to the European market”.
Davis says Mandelson signed off on concessions to a firm ultimately owned by Deripaska worth $200 million a year.
David Davis tells MPs Mandelson’s ‘abiding flaws’ should have disqualified him from ambassador’s job
Davis says Peter Mandelson was campaigning to get the ambassador’s job whilst also campaigning to be chancellor of Oxford university.
So there was time to vet him before the formal process started, he says.
He says there was a vast amount of material in the public domain.
This process would look at the risk of the candidate being blackmailed, or the risk of the candidate abusing the role.
And it should also look at the risk of the candidate being “too morally flawed to be given a major role in anything”, he says.
Davis says this is relevant.
He says Mandelson was “easily dazzled by wealth and fame and … willing to use his public position to pursue those things”.
There was an example of this early in Mandelson’s career when he took a loan from Geoffrey Robinson to buy a flat. Failure to disclose this led to his first cabinet resignation.
Davis goes on:
That was the first time we saw so publicly the abiding flaws in Lord Mandelson’s character, which, frankly, would normally disqualify any normal person from a job this important.
