LONDON: Former British minister Peter Mandelson has resigned from Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour Party after fresh media reports highlighted renewed questions over his past links with disgraced US financier Jeffrey Epstein, British outlets reported Sunday.
Mandelson, a senior Labour figure during the governments of former prime minister Tony Blair, said he stepped down to avoid causing further embarrassment to the party.
“I have been further linked this weekend to the understandable furore surrounding Jeffrey Epstein, and I feel regretful and sorry about this,” Mandelson wrote in a letter to Labour, according to the BBC and other British media.
He rejected allegations that Epstein made financial payments to him, which surfaced in British press reports based on documents released by the US Justice Department, saying the claims were false and would be investigated.
“While doing this, I do not wish to cause further embarrassment to the Labour Party, and I am therefore stepping down from membership of the party,” the letter said.
Mandelson had already been dismissed last year from his post as Britain’s ambassador to the United States after earlier disclosures about his association with Epstein, including a letter in which he referred to the financier as “my best pal.”
A key architect of Labour’s election victories in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Mandelson also faced previous political controversies. He resigned as trade minister in 1998 over a loan used to purchase a home, and again left the cabinet in 2001 over a passport-related scandal involving an Indian billionaire — later cleared of wrongdoing.
He is currently on leave from the House of Lords, Britain’s upper chamber of parliament.
Separately, Prime Minister Starmer said Saturday that former Prince Andrew should appear before a US congressional committee in connection with new revelations about his own ties to Epstein.