”The Prime Minister has asked the Foreign Secretary to remove him (Mandelson) from the ambassador role”, it says in a statement from the British Foreign Office.
The new acting US ambassador will be James Roscoe, according to BBC.
Mandelson's and Epstein's friendship has been known for years, but newly published emails have shown that it was a much closer friendship than previously revealed. Among other things, Mandelson is said to have suggested that Epstein's first conviction for buying sex in 2008 was incorrect, writes The Guardian.
”I feel hopeless and angry about what has happened”, Mandelson wrote to Epstein about the conviction in an email published by The Sun.
”My best friend”
Mandelson – often called ”the prince of darkness” in British politics – also appears in the scandalous collection of birthday greetings to Epstein that was recently released. In it, he calls Epstein ”my best friend”. After the greeting became known, Mandelson claimed that he today feels ”great regret” over the friendship.
Jeffrey Epstein was sentenced to 18 months in prison in 2008 after a 14-year-old girl told about abuse committed in Epstein's home in Florida. He was arrested again in July 2019 and took his life the following month in detention, charged with extensive sex trafficking and abuse of dozens of underage girls.
Lately, stronger connections have emerged to a number of famous and powerful men – including Britain's Prince Andrew and US President Donald Trump.
Shaky week
The now 71-year-old Mandelson is a strong profile within the ruling Labour Party for decades, and was a minister about 15 years ago. Together with Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, Mandelson laid the foundation for ”new Labour” in the early 1990s, which lifted the party's popularity and led to Blair's landslide victory in the 1997 election.
The scandal is expected to be a headache for Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who as recently as Wednesday stated that he stood behind the ambassador. In the British media, Starmer's judgment is now being questioned when he appointed Mandelson as US ambassador, despite knowledge of the friendship with a convicted sex offender.
Starmer, who has recently struggled with falling trust figures, has had a tough week. On Friday, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, who has been one of the Labour government's most prominent names, was forced to leave her post after a tax mistake.
