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Prime Minister Keir Starmer says ex-envoy Peter Mandelson should no longer hold a seat in the upper house of parliament.
Police in the United Kingdom have announced they are reviewing allegations of misconduct in public office following revelations that London’s former ambassador to Washington leaked confidential government information to the late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The announcement by the Metropolitan Police on Monday came after investigative files released by United States authorities revealed that Peter Mandelson shared government plans with Epstein while serving as a UK minister.
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Mandelson, who served as business secretary under former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, told Epstein about asset sales and tax changes under consideration by London in 2009, as well as plans for the 500 billion euro ($590bn) bailout of the single currency in 2010, according to emails released by the US Department of Justice on Friday.
“Following this release and subsequent media reporting, the Met has received a number of reports relating to alleged misconduct in public office. The reports will all be reviewed to determine if they meet the criminal threshold for investigation,” Metropolitan Police Commander Ella Marriott said in a statement.
“As with any matter, if new and relevant information is brought to our attention we will assess it, and investigate as appropriate,” Marriott added.
The Metropolitan Police did not name Mandelson, but its statement came after the leader of the pro-independence Scottish National Party said he had written to the police commissioner urging him to investigate the former ambassador for alleged misconduct in public office.
Earlier on Monday, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced an inquiry into Mandelson’s ties to Epstein.
Starmer, who sacked Mandelson as London’s top diplomat in Washington last year after the emergence of correspondence detailing his ties to Epstein, also said the former minister should lose his lifelong appointment to the UK’s upper house of parliament.
On Sunday, Mandelson resigned from the governing Labour Party, whose return to electoral dominance he helped to engineer in the 1990s, citing his wish to avoid causing further embarrassment to his colleagues.
In further fallout in the UK on Monday, the charity launched by Sarah Ferguson, the ex-wife of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, announced that it would close “for the foreseeable future” amid revelations about her friendly relationship with Epstein.
“Our chair Sarah Ferguson and the board of trustees have agreed that with regret the charity will shortly close for the foreseeable future,” a spokesman said in a statement, without elaborating on the reasons for the closure.
Separately on Monday, the US Justice Department said it had removed thousands of Epstein-related files from the internet after lawyers representing some of his alleged victims said their identities had been exposed due to insufficient redactions in the latest release of documents.
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