Will Chief of Staff’s resignation save Starmer?

Scandal involving former ministers

Epstein affair: Will chief of staff’s resignation save Starmer?

The Epstein scandal shakes London: a British ex-minister puts Keir Starmer in trouble. Now there is the first resignation – is that enough to get the Prime Minister out of the firing line?

The scandal surrounding convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has consequences for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s inner circle. In the affair surrounding former British minister Peter Mandelson’s Epstein contacts, Starmer’s chief of staff Morgan McSweeney announced his resignation on Sunday, according to consistent media reports.

McSweeney had therefore advised the Prime Minister to appoint former Economics Minister Mandelson as ambassador to the USA. “I take full responsibility for this,” McSweeney said in a statement published by the BBC. “The decision to appoint Peter Mandelson was wrong.” This damaged the Labor Party, the country and trust in politics.

Mandelson is said to have had close contact with Epstein and, among other things, passed on sensitive information to the US businessman during the financial and economic crisis. The British police are investigating the former minister, who was appointed ambassador to the USA by Starmer around a year ago.

That’s why the Prime Minister is also under pressure on the matter. In recent days there have been increasing calls for Starmer to resign. According to the PA news agency, Green Party leader Zack Polanski said on Saturday that Starmer must now resign and described Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador as a “catastrophic error of judgement”. “Starmer knew that Peter Mandelson was still friends with a known pedophile,” Polanski said. Nevertheless, he brought him in “because he knew he could whisper in Donald Trump’s ears.”

Mandelson lost his ambassadorship last year because of the Epstein scandal, and most recently he resigned from the ruling Labor party and gave up his seat in the upper house of parliament. But not only voices from the opposition, but also from his own party continue to blame Starmer for the wrong decision.

Commenting on McSweeney’s resignation, Starmer said it had been an honor to work with him for so many years, according to the BBC. “Our party and I owe him a great debt of gratitude.” McSweeney was instrumental in Labor’s landslide victory in the 2024 general election. Even Labor ministers did not see his withdrawal coming on Sunday. With the resignation of his chief of staff, is the prime minister himself out of the firing line? Hardly.

While McSweeney has long been a red flag for some Labor politicians, others are convinced that the resignation will do little good – on the contrary. Without the close advisor, on whose instincts Starmer has always relied, the prime minister would be in a worse position, the BBC quoted a Labor source as saying: “He wouldn’t be prime minister without Morgan, and I wonder whether he will be that way for much longer.”