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Keir Starmer was battling to regain the British prime minister’s post on Monday after key advisers resigned and Labor leaders called for the British prime minister to resign in the painful aftermath of the release of files on the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.
Tim Allan, Starmer’s head of communications, announced on Monday that he was resigning from the government. The announcement comes less than a day after Morgan McSweeney, Mr Starmer’s chief of staff and close ally, resigned over his role in appointing Peter Mandelson, a friend of Jeffrey Epstein, as British ambassador to the US last year.
Mr Allan’s resignation adds to the sense that the scandal surrounding Mr Mandelson’s appointment has gone unchecked and could spell the end of Mr Starmer’s premiership just 19 months after Labor won power in a landslide election that gave it the largest parliamentary majority this century.
That feeling was reinforced after Scottish Labor leader Anas Sarwar defeated the party on Monday afternoon to demand Starmer’s resignation, becoming the first Labor leader to publicly announce his resignation.
“The distractions must end and the leadership of Downing Street must change,” Sarwar said. He said the decision to call for Starmer’s resignation had caused “personal hurt and pain”, but said he felt a change of direction was needed ahead of local elections in May, which had long been expected to be a referendum on Starmer’s leadership.
As soon as Starmer was elected in 2024, the British public became displeased with him. Labor has promised a “10-year national renaissance”, which would require winning two elections, but a series of policy missteps and defections at the top of the government have seen Mr Starmer’s approval ratings fall to record lows. Labour’s woes are an advantage for the populist party Reform Britain, which has led in opinion polls for more than a year.
Mr Starmer faces his biggest crisis yet over his decision to appoint Mr Mandelson, a veteran Labor politician, as ambassador to the US, despite his famous friendship with Mr Epstein. Her friendship with Epstein continued even after the disgraced financier was convicted in 2008 of pimping an underage girl. Mandelson’s revelations dominated British media for several days and snowballed into one of the country’s biggest political scandals of the century.
Mr Starmer fired Mr Mandelson in September after a series of emails revealed disturbing details about his relationship with Mr Epstein. Further details of Mr. Mandelson’s relationship with Mr. Epstein were revealed last month when the U.S. Department of Justice released millions of documents relating to the disgraced investor. Some of these documents appear to show that Mr. Mandelson passed on market-sensitive information to Mr. Epstein while he was Britain’s business secretary in 2009.
British police, who have launched a criminal investigation into misconduct in public office, last week searched two properties linked to Mr Mandelson. CNN has not been able to reach Mandelson for comment.
Meanwhile, opposition parties and even figures within the Labor Party are calling on Mr Starmer to release documents relating to the government’s decision to appoint Mr Mandelson as ambassador to the US.
In a statement on Sunday, Mr McSweeney, a protégé of Mr Mandelson, said he took “full responsibility” for advising Mr Starmer on the appointment.
“The decision to appoint Peter Mandelson was the wrong one. He has undermined trust in our party, our country and politics itself,” Mr McSweeney said, adding he remained “full support” of the prime minister.
Mr Starmer said last week that Mr Mandelson had lied about the extent of his friendship with Mr Epstein, calling what was revealed in recently released documents by the Justice Department “beyond infuriating”.
In a speech to staff on Monday morning, Mr Starmer again criticized Mr Mandelson’s “disgraceful conduct”, calling it “completely inconsistent with public service”, according to a Downing Street article.
But if Mr Starmer had hoped to reassert his grip on power at the start of the new week, it has been shaken again by the resignation of another aide, Mr Allan, who joined as communications director about five months ago.
“I have decided to step down to enable the creation of a new No. 10 team. I wish the Prime Minister and his team every success,” Allan said in a short statement.
Mr Starmer now faces an uphill battle to convince his party that he is the right person to continue leading the country. On Monday afternoon, members of Starmer’s cabinet issued a concerted vote of support, making the case for the prime minister against X.
Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy said Mr Starmer had “won a five-year mandate to deliver Labour’s manifesto…we should not allow anything to distract us from our mission to transform Britain and we will support the Prime Minister in delivering that”. Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said Mr Starmer’s leadership was needed “not just at home but on the world stage”.
Late on Monday night, the Prime Minister is scheduled to meet with nearly 400 Labor Party MPs in a bid to shore up dwindling support.
Mr Sarwar’s decision to call for Mr Starmer’s resignation could lead to similar action by restive Labor MPs. The Scottish Labor leader said he had spoken to Mr Starmer before asking him to resign, adding: “I think it’s safe to say he and I have had our differences.”
“There were too many mistakes,” Sarwar said. “They promised it would be different, but too much has happened. Has there been any good? Of course there has been a lot, but no one knows about it, and no one can hear it because it’s drowned out. So it can’t continue.”
