Starmer’s premiership safe, minister says despite growing anger over Mandelson

Steve Reed on Thursday (February 5) argued Sir Keir was not “at fault” because the disgraced peer “was taken at his word” about his links to paedophile Jeffrey Epstein before his appointment as UK ambassador to the US.

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“You’re only as good as the information you receive,” Mr Reed said as he blamed the vetting process for failing to disprove Lord Mandelson’s claims his relationship with the convicted sex offender “was next to nothing”.

Mr Reed – a Starmer loyalist – insisted Sir Keir and his right-hand man Morgan McSweeney were safe in their jobs, despite backbenchers calling their political judgment into question and demanding Mr McSweeney’s sacking.

Many blame the Prime Minister’s chief of staff for handing his ally Lord Mandelson the top diplomatic job in Washington despite knowing about his dealings to Epstein continued after his conviction for child sex offences.

One Labour MP, speaking to the Press Association anonymously, said Mr McSweeney “needs to go, he’s a total liability and like Mandelson is only interested in himself”.

The MP added: “I think the PM doesn’t have much time left and sadly, he has nobody but himself to blame.”

There was also anger about Downing Street’s attempt to control the release of potentially explosive documents providing insight into how the decision was made.

In the face of a mutiny from Labour MPs – led by former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner – the Government on Wednesday backed down and ceded control to Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee to decide what could be released into the public domain.

Another Labour MP told the Press Association: “Morgan is in charge of strategy.

“I think that is what failed yesterday. It’s not a one off.

“The Prime Minister was elected by the public and we should focus on making him better.”

Paula Barker, Labour deputy chairwoman of the Standards Committee and Privileges Committee, criticised Sir Keir’s “questionable” judgment over the saga but stopped short of calling for him to quit.

On Mr McSweeney, she told the BBC’s Today programme: “There are serious questions to be answered by his (Sir Keir’s) team.

“And certainly, as we know only too well…, when your chief of staff becomes the story, then often it’s time for them to go.”

Hull Labour MP Karl Turner said the Prime Minister was in a “crisis situation” and that if he continued to be surrounded by “advisers who give him shoddy advice, I think that the reality of that will end in the Prime Minister having to be making a decision about his future at some point soon”.

He told Times Radio: “If McSweeney continues in No 10 Downing Street, I think the PM is up against it in a way that he doesn’t need to be.”

Former Labour shadow chancellor John McDonnell said Sir Keir “lost all sense of judgment” and should go.

“We may need a caretaker leader specifically appointed for a time limited period to undertake a cleansing of our party and politics before we elect a new leader,” he wrote on X.

Housing Secretary Mr Reed defended the Prime Minister on the morning round by arguing he was lied to by Lord Mandelson, who he said “conned everybody”.

The minister added: “What Mandelson did was he made out that his relationship with Epstein was not only over, but had barely existed in the first place.

“He was taken at his word. There was a vetting process to be gone through that threw up nothing that added further concern to what Mandelson was saying, and so the appointment was made on the basis of his experience as the former EU trade commissioner and former UK business secretary.”

Asked whether Sir Keir and Mr McSweeney were safe in their jobs, Mr Reed said “of course” they were.

He added: “The person at fault here is not the Prime Minister or his team.

“It is Peter Mandelson, who lied, manipulated and deceived everybody.”

The Cabinet minister also pointed the finger at the vetting procedure which he said “will be looked at”.

He said: “The fault is with a long-established process that was gone through in the same way that it would have been for any other appointment of this kind, and it predates the arrival of this Government.”

The Government wants to publish the documents that show “what the Prime Minister saw when Peter Mandelson lied to him” before his appointment as US ambassador “as quickly as possible”, Mr Reed said.

The release could be delayed because the Metropolitan Police has asked the Government not to publish documents that would “undermine” the investigation into the peer’s passing of confidential government information to Epstein.

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch predicted that their publication would lead to more trouble for Sir Keir as well as Mr McSweeney’s departure.

She told LBC: “I think that those papers are going to show all sorts of terrible decision-making and bad judgment by the Labour Government.

“I think Keir Starmer is only going to get into more trouble.”

Mrs Badenoch will hold a press conference in Westminster later on Thursday morning, where she is expected to keep up pressure on the Prime Minister.

Sir Keir will seek to move on from the fiasco with a speech in East Sussex focused on reversing community decline, but is likely to face further questions about Lord Mandelson – who has quit the House of Lords, resigned from the Labour Party, been removed from the Privy Council and faces a criminal investigation following new revelations from the so-called Epstein files.