London (AFP) – Senior UK ministers rallied around embattled premier Keir Starmer on Monday after a prominent ally dealt a blow to his authority by demanding he quit for embroiling the British government in the Epstein scandal. The rearguard action came as Starmer scrambled to avert the most serious crisis of his stuttering 19-month premiership, which has been beset by policy u-turns and dire poll ratings, raising questions about his future.
Starmer’s position looked increasingly fragile after Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar called on him to resign for appointing Peter Mandelson as US ambassador despite knowing he had maintained links to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. “The distraction needs to end, and the leadership in Downing Street has to change,” Sarwar told a press conference in Glasgow, becoming the most senior Labour politician to publicly urge Starmer to go.
Downing Street insisted the prime minister was going nowhere, saying he would fulfil a “five-year mandate from the British people to deliver change”. Several cabinet ministers came out in support of the prime minister following several days of ominous silence, including his deputy David Lammy, foreign minister Yvette Cooper, and finance minister Rachel Reeves. Left-wing figurehead Angela Rayner and interior minister Shabana Mahmood, both tipped as possible replacements for Starmer, both said they had “full support” in their leader.
Earlier Monday, Starmer lost his second top aide in two days when his communications chief Tim Allan quit just months into the role. On Sunday, Starmer’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, resigned for advising Starmer to make the contentious Mandelson appointment. McSweeney’s departure deprives the beleaguered UK leader of his closest adviser and the man who helped Starmer drag Labour back to the centre after succeeding leftist leader Jeremy Corbyn in 2020.
Starmer has had several communications chiefs in his short tenure, with staff departures, policy reversals, and missteps an increasing hallmark of his administration, denting his popularity. Conservative opposition leader Kemi Badenoch told BBC radio that Starmer’s position was “untenable”, but the prime minister vowed in an emergency meeting with staff to carry on. He was also to address Labour MPs at a crunch meeting later Monday.
Starmer sacked Mandelson in September last year after documents published by the US Congress revealed the extent of Mandelson’s relationship with Epstein after the financier’s conviction in 2008. Epstein killed himself in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex crimes. Documents released on January 30 by the US government reignited the controversy, appearing to show that Mandelson leaked confidential UK government information to Epstein when he was a British minister, including during the 2008 financial crisis.
Police are investigating Mandelson, 72, for misconduct in a public office and raided two of his properties on Friday. He has not been arrested. Starmer, a former human rights lawyer and top prosecutor for England and Wales, has apologised to Epstein’s victims and accused Mandelson of lying about the extent of his ties to the financier during the vetting for his appointment to Washington. The UK government is to release tens of thousands of emails, messages, and documents on Mandelson’s appointment, which could increase pressure on the prime minister and other senior ministers.
Several backbench Labour MPs, mostly from the left of the party who have never warmed to Starmer, have suggested that the prime minister should follow McSweeney out the exit door. But no clear successor has emerged and party rules make mounting a challenge difficult. The party also faces key local elections in May, including in Scotland where Labour is expected to lose to the pro-independence Scottish National Party.
Labour has trailed Nigel Farage’s hard-right Reform UK party by double-digit margins in polls over the past year. The surveys have heightened unease among Labour MPs, although the next general election is not due until 2029. Labour faces a crucial by-election on February 28, and defeat would add to Starmer’s woes.
© 2024 AFP
