LONDON — Peter Mandelson, former British ambassador to the United States, has resigned from Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour Party following further revelations of his links to the late paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, saying he does not want to “cause further embarrassment” to the party.The former cabinet minister, who was sacked as US ambassador last year because of his past connections to Epstein, appeared in the latest release of files by the US Department of Justice on Friday.Documents suggest Epstein made $75,000 (£55,000) in payments to Mandelson in three separate $25,000 transactions in 2003 and 2004.Mandelson said in a letter to Labour’s general secretary: “I have been further linked this weekend to the understandable furor surrounding Jeffrey Epstein and I feel regretful and sorry about this.”Mandelson said he believed that reports over the weekend were false, but that he needed to investigate them, the reports said.Mandelson earlier told the BBC he had no recollection of the payments and did not know whether the documents were genuine. He also reiterated his regret for “ever having known” Epstein.“While doing this I do not wish to cause further embarrassment to the Labour Party and I am therefore stepping down from membership of the party,” Mandelson said in his letter, according to the reports.He reiterated his regret for “ever having known Epstein” and for continuing his association following the disgraced financier’s conviction, apologizing “unequivocally to the women and girls who suffered”.Mandelson’s resignation comes after the Financial Times and the BBC reported on documents that appear to show that he and his partner received payments totaling $75,000 from Epstein in 2003 and 2004.The documents were contained in investigative files on Epstein released by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) on Friday.Emails released by the DOJ also appear to show that Mandelson told Epstein in 2009 that he was “trying hard” to water down a tax on bank bonuses announced by the government, in which he was serving as business secretary.Mandelson told Epstein that JPMorgan chief executive Jamie Dimon should “mildly threaten” the UK’s chancellor over the tax, according to the emails, which were reported by the Telegraph and the Financial Times.Numerous high-profile figures in politics, business, and entertainment have appeared in the Epstein files, and being included in the documents does not indicate wrongdoing.Labour MP Gordon McKee told BBC Radio 4 that Epstein’s victims would be “rightly outraged” by the recent revelations and that Lord Mandelson had done the “right thing” by resigning from the Labour Party.A Conservative Party spokesman criticized Prime Minister Starmer for “allowing Mandelson to resign from the Labour Party instead of kicking him out”.Housing Secretary Steve Reed had said the government was not aware of Mandelson’s alleged financial links to Epstein.Mandelson has a long history with the Labour Party. His grandfather was Herbert Morrison, a cabinet minister in Clement Attlee’s 1945 government, and he began working for Labour in the 1980s.He was sent to Washington by Starmer in December 2024 as the UK’s ambassador, but was sacked the following September after further revelations emerged about his friendship with Epstein. He has been on a leave of absence from the House of Lords since he was appointed UK ambassador to the US. — Agencies
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