Gordon Brown has described the pressure on Keir Starmer as “serious” and said the Prime Minister may have been too slow to act over Peter Mandelson…reports Asian Lite News
Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said the situation facing Keir Starmer is “serious” and suggested he may have been “too slow to do the right things” in relation to Peter Mandelson.
The Prime Minister has been under growing pressure from Labour MPs over his decision to appoint Lord Mandelson as the UK’s ambassador to Washington in 2024, despite the peer’s association with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein being publicly known at the time.
Brown said the appointment had been a “mistake”, adding that he too had erred by bringing Lord Mandelson into his own cabinet in 2008. However, he said he backed Starmer as “a man of integrity” who had been “betrayed” and remained the right person to “clean up the system”.
His comments came after officers from the Metropolitan Police completed searches of two properties linked to Lord Mandelson. Emails disclosed in recent Epstein files appear to suggest the peer passed market-sensitive government information to Epstein, including notice of an impending European bailout and internal assessments of the UK economy.
Earlier in the week, Starmer said Lord Mandelson had lied to him during the vetting process for the ambassadorial role. He said: “None of us knew the depths and the darkness of that relationship.” Backbench disquiet has nevertheless continued.
Asked whether Starmer was the right man to lead the country, Brown said: “Well, this is obviously serious. I mean, there’s always speculation. It happened to me, it happened to Tony Blair, it happens to everybody about how their future should be gauged. But this is serious and the task is very clear. We’ve got to clean up the system… and end the corruption and unethical behaviour. And if we don’t do it, we’ll pay a heavy price.”
He added: “Perhaps he’s been too slow to do the right things, but he must do the right things now. And let’s judge what he does on what happens in the next few months, when he tries – and I believe [he] will try – to clean up the system.”
Brown said he believed Lord Mandelson had “betrayed” his country. He said the communications “meant Britain was at risk because of that, the currency was at risk, some of the trading that would happen would be speculative as a result of that – and there’s no doubt that huge commercial damage could have been done and perhaps was done”. He described himself as “shocked, sad, angry, betrayed, let down”.
Referring to exchanges in which the peer discussed future employment and writing projects while in office, Brown said: “The emails show that. They show that he was talking about writing a book while he was supposed to be a government minister. He was talking about how he would get a job after the government was over and talking about what banks would employ him.
“All these things were happening at one and the same time, so it was a complete betrayal of his colleagues and of the job that he was carrying out and, of course, it was a betrayal of the country.”
Among the messages is one indicating advance notice of a €500bn EU rescue package in 2010. Another refers to a 2009 memo from Brown adviser Nick Butler on the state of the economy. Brown said such material was “market-sensitive”.
He said: “I see it as a financial crime, and there’s no doubt that that was very dangerous. And look, all the information he passed on, the papers by other advisors were commercially sensitive. This was financially secret information. It meant that Britain was at risk because of that.”
On Saturday, the Metropolitan Police said the searches had taken place in Wiltshire and north London following allegations of misconduct in public office. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Hayley Sewart said the 72-year-old had not been arrested.
“This will be a complex investigation requiring a significant amount of further evidence gathering and analysis. It will take some time to do this work comprehensively and we will not be providing a running commentary.”
Photographs in the same tranche of files have also drawn attention to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, who has faced calls, including from Starmer, to give evidence to the United States Congress.
