Angela Rayner has sensationally claimed she warned the Prime Minister not to appoint disgraced peer Lord Mandelson as US ambassador but he ‘ignored her’.
The former Deputy Prime Minister has told friends that she advised him against the appointment because of his links to the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
It emerged today that Ms Rayner, herself forced to quit government in disgrace over her tax affairs, privately warned Sir Keir Starmer that appointing Mandelson would be a mistake because of evidence that the architect of New Labour had retained a close relationship with the billionaire financier despite his conviction for child sex offences.
She is said to have told friends that the PM chose to ignore her and instead trust in Mandelson’s assertion that he ‘barely knew’ the convicted sex offender, according to today’s Times.
Meanwhile she had pointed out that there was already public evidence that Mandelson and Epstein had retained a link following his conviction for procuring a child for prostitution in 2008.
Ms Rayner, MP for Ashton, is hotly tipped to stage a comeback from the backbenches and lead a rebellion against Sir Keir Starmer.
She was forced to resign from her position and from the cabinet last year when it was revealed she had underpaid stamp duty on her £800,000 Hove flat by £40,000.
The claims were made as an increasingly bitter briefing war heated up between Ms Rayner and the Health Minister Wes Streeting who is widely seen as her main challenger in any leadership battle.
Angela Rayner has sensationally claimed she warned the Prime Minister not to appoint disgraced peer Lord Mandelson as US ambassador but he ‘ignored her’
Ms Rayner is said to have told friends Sir Keir chose to ignore her warning and instead trust in Mandelson’s assertion that he ‘barely knew’ the convicted sex offender
Sir Keir Starmer has become engulfed by a growing scandal over his appointment of Lord Mandelson as US ambassador. Pictured: The pair together in 2025
Meanwhile, MPs are said to believe it is a case of when, not if, the Prime Minister is forced to stand down although many believe he will ‘limp on’ until after the May local elections when sources said ‘the die is cast’ for his departure.
The revelations also came as former PM Gordon Brown spoke out today about Mandelson’s ‘betrayal’ to his ‘country and colleagues’ in a lengthy interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
Mr Brown, who appointed Mandelson as Business Secretary in 2008 during his premiership, said he took personal responsibility for the appointment and admitted he was wrong but said he had been ‘lied to and betrayed’ just as Starmer had been.
In scathing criticism of the former New Labour grandee’s behaviour, he dubbed Mandelson ‘Epstein’s enabler’ and said he should testify in the US, as should ‘the ex Prince Andrew’.
‘He did betray us but his biggest betrayal was of the women and girls that were trafficked, were exploited and were treated as less than human by Epstein and by Mandelson who became one of his enablers and we are talking about a global network of wealth and power that felt it could act with complete impunity and we owe it to those victims and those girls who cruelly suffered and have not yet had justice that every action we take is rooting out the power of those people who made these powerless women their subject,’ he told the programme.
He also called for work to begin immediately on setting up an anti-corruption commission to root out corruption in British politics after what he described as Mandelson’s ‘financial crimes’ went undetected for so long because of ‘systemic failures’.
While backing the PM as a ‘man of integrity’ and refusing to criticise him for his appointment of Mandelson to Washington, he admitted Starmer had taken ‘too long to act’ and said that ‘if we don’t act now, all people in public life will pay a heavy price.’
Meanwhile, speculation about the PM’s future continues unabated with one cabinet minister telling The Times today that they believed Starmer was so frustrated with his mistake over Mandelson’s appointment that he could stand down.
Former PM Gordon Brown spoke out today about Mandelson’s ‘betrayal’ to his ‘country and colleagues’ in a lengthy interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. Pictured: The pair in 2008, after Mandelson became Business Secretary
However, his allies said it was ‘completely untrue’ that he was considering quitting, pointing to his comments at a meeting of Labour MPs at Chequers on Thursday night when he vowed to carry on and ‘rise to the challenge’ of convincing the public that Labour was committed to the ‘politics of service and making a difference’.
Starmer said: ‘We must not lose what brought us here … Because that behaviour [of Peter Mandelson] challenges what we stand for and that is corrosive and a challenge. We must rise to that challenge.’
Meanwhile other sources warned that Wes Streeting could be ‘ruined’ himself by the mass disclosure of documents relating to Mandelson who he once proudly called his ‘mentor’.
The PM promised the release following a fraught Prime Minister’s Questions when he was interrogated about what he knew when.
One Rayner ally said: ‘Wes will be raging, and I’m sure some more messages will come out and ruin him. Mandelson was his mentor.’
And a minister said Streeting had a ‘guilt by association problem’, while a second said Streeting had no chance with the party membership because he would be simply seen as a continuation of the current leadership.
As the bitter rivalry grows between the two former allies, a Streeting supporter accused Rayner’s allies of ‘seeking to exploit the Epstein scandal to attack Wes’, denying the two men were ever close.
‘They are not as close as people are suggesting,’ they said.
In 2022 a picture emerged of Lord Mandelson celebrating with Epstein at a birthday gathering
Another image released in the Epstein files shows Peter Mandelson standing in white underwear while talking to a woman in a bath robe
Peter Mandelson is pictured and mentioned many times throughout the released Epstein files
A cabinet minister supportive of Streeting retaliated by saying: ‘It would be a complete disaster because she wouldn’t be capable of doing the job [of prime minister]. She would be Labour’s Liz Truss.’
Meanwhile Mandelson is being investigated for possible misconduct in public office for allegations of passing market sensitive and confidential information from No 10 to Epstein.
His homes in London and Wiltshire were searched by police yesterday.
‘The searches are related to an ongoing investigation into misconduct in public office offences, involving a 72-year-old man. He has not been arrested and inquiries are ongoing,’ they said.
The recent release of further ‘Epstein files’ by the US Department of Justice appeared to show Mandelson, who was forced to stand down as ambassador and later the House of Lords because of his links to Epstein, provided the paedophile financier with confidential government documents on at least four occasions between 2009 and 2010 when he was business secretary.
The further three million pages of documents also revealed fresh details of Mandelson’s friendship with Epstein, during and after his imprisonment in 2008.
They also suggested Mandelson and his now husband Reinaldo da Silva had received money from Epstein. Mandelson has denied wrongdoing.
The latest revelations from the files today also show he offered to secure a holiday home for Epstein in southern Italy to host ‘guests’ although he has previously denied having any knowledge of Epstein’s sexual and abusive activity with girls and young women.
In an email dated August 2010, the disgraced peer tells Epstein he has ‘found a great place to stay’ on the Amalfi coast ‘offering privacy and rooms for your ‘guests’.
The email address was redacted in the files, but a BBC and Bureau for Investigative Journalism has traced the email to Mandelson.
Meanwhile, police have asked No 10 not to publish any information that could prejudice their investigation into Mandelson, meaning Starmer’s promised document release must wait.
Starmer apparently overruled the cabinet secretary and the government’s national security secretariat by agreeing to demands from Labour backbenchers to hand over secret communications between Mandelson and ministers during his time as ambassador to the intelligence and security committee (ISC), it was also claimed today.
The Cabinet Office is expected to disclose tens of thousands of emails and documents sent to the US embassy raising concerns that it will risk Britain’s security and affect the special relationship between the UK and the US.
In a letter to Lord Beamish, chairman of the ISC, Starmer said there was a ‘very significant volume of material’ on Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador to be reviewed.
He added: ‘The government wishes to engage constructively with the ISC, and to ensure that parliament’s instruction is met with the urgency and transparency it deserves. I have asked the cabinet secretary to follow up.’
