EditPeter Mandelson as Trump White House bridge-builder: a curious choice from the outset
The UK envoy’s Epstein ties were public knowledge, yet overlooked in ambassadorial vetting
The definition of a long shot – something that is unlikely to succeed but worth trying – describes the decision by the British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to nominate Peter Mandelson as UK ambassador to the United States.
Mandelson’s nomination broke with tradition. British ambassadors to the United States traditionally come from the UK’s deep pool of career diplomats. The previous patronage appointment to Washington – by another Labour Prime Minister – came to grief. In 1977 James Callaghan nominated his then son-in-law Peter Jay, described as “the cleverest young man in England” as ambassador. The appointment made in the belief that Jay and his wife would charm the incoming Carter administration went off the rails. Following a series of personal scandals Ambassador Jay was recalled.
When announcing Lord Mandelson’s nomination in December 2024 Prime Minister Starmer recalled that “the United States is one of our most important allies and as we move into a new chapter in our friendship, Peter will bring unrivalled experience to the role and take our partnership from strength to strength”.
This optimism overlooked Mandelson’s back story.
An odd choice
The idea that Mandelson was the right person to build bridges between Downing St. and the Trump White House was an odd one. The serving ambassador, Dame Karen Pierce, had a good rapport with President Trump. One did not have to dig deep into Mandelson’s past to find land mines.
For years Mandelson expressed openly hostile views on Donald Trump. Labelling Trump as “little short of a white nationalist and racist”. During Trump’s first spell in the White House, Mandelson suggested that Trump would never embody British values.
Mandelson also attacked Trump’s ‘world view’. In a scathing article in March 2018, Mandelson, writing as ‘a former European Commissioner for Trade’, described Donald Trump as “a bully and a mercantilist who thinks the US will gain in trade only when others are losing”. He criticised Trump’s policy on China, arguing that it put global free trade at risk and described his attempt to put China “in the naughty corner” as “absurd.”
The less than flattering view of President Trump could have, but didn’t, become a block to Mandelson’s ambassadorial appointment. Trump could, but refrained, from declining the nomination.
While the President stayed silent about Mandelson’s nomination a Republican strategist Chris LaCavita did not hold back. LaCavita attacked the decision to “replace a universally respected ambassador with an absolute moron” and recommended that Mandelson “stay home.” The comments drew speculation as to whether they were personal or a ‘shot across the bows’ from the incoming President.
Demonstrating remarkable chutzpah, when questioned about previous comments on Trump, Mandelson explained his remarks were “ill-judged and wrong”, made at a time when “British politics were “very fraught” and full of “high emotion.” He told Fox news that he felt that “times and attitudes have changed since then”.
Ruthless and divisive
Those advocating Mandelson’s nomination referenced his long political experience, his “successful” period as EU Trade Commissioner and his extraordinary global network of contacts as making him ideally suited for Ambassador. Foreign Secretary David Lammy spoke of Mandelson bringing “a wealth of experience in trade, economic and foreign policy from his years in government and the private sector.” Whether “successful” is the right word to describe Mandelson’s long career depends on how one defines success.
Born into Labour Party ‘royalty’, the grandson Herbert Morrison, a Deputy Leader of the party, Mandelson was elected to Lambeth Council in 1979. He resigned three years later after clashing with colleagues ‘on the left’.
Appointed by Neil Kinnock as Labour’s Director of Communications in 1985, Mandelson played a key role in ‘rebranding’ the then ailing party and established a reputation as a ruthless operator. Kinnock later described Mandelson as absorbing and living up to his reputation as “the Prince of Darkness.”
Mandelson entered Parliament following the 1992 general election. The Conservatives won that election forcing Kinnock to resign as Labour leader. Kinnock’s successor, John Smith, was expected to offer Mandelson a senior role in the Parliamentary Party: Smith who distrusted Mandelson gave him nothing.
When Smith died suddenly in 1994, Mandelson played a key but divisive role in Tony Blair’s campaign for Labour leadership and in the highly successful general election campaign of 1997 which brought Labour into government.
Tony Blair appointed Mandelson as Minister without Portfolio, giving him charge of the Millennium Dome, a project intended to showcase “New Labour, (and) Cool Britannia”. Mandelson’s Grandfather Herbert Morrison played a similar role in preparing for the 1951 Festival of Britain.
In July 1998 Blair appointed Mandelson Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. Five months later Mandelson had to resign following revelations that he had used an undeclared interest free loan of £370,000 from Geoffrey Robinson MP, then serving as Paymaster General, to buy a property in London’s fashionable Notting Hill.
In October 1999 Blair ‘resurrected’ Mandelson as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland replacing Mo Mowlam. Blair had become disenchanted with Mowlam believing she was getting too close to Sinn Fein, a belief bolstered by the taping, by MI5, of Mowlam’s phone conversations. Mandelson hotly contested reports that he had briefed against Mowlam
When Mandelson’s nomination was announced, the Irish ambassador to the UK wrote that as a Blairite, Mandelson would be a strong supporter of the Good Friday Agreement and would work to achieve its implementation.
Mandelson’s sojourn in Northern Ireland was cut short. In January 2001 he was forced to resign amid allegations of improperly assisting businessman Srichand Hinduja with a UK passport application. The Hinduja family had donated to the Millenium Dome project.
During his spell as Northern Ireland Secretary Mandelson managed to annoy politicians from both sides of Northern Ireland’s political divide. When departing Hillsborough Castle, the official residence of the Northern Ireland Secretary, Mandelson commented that his dog Bobby was more popular than himself.
In June 2001 Mandelson was re-elected to the Commons a tribute to his considerable tenacity. Never short of self-confidence, Mandelson sought to return to Cabinet. Following opposition from senior Ministers, Blair resisted his approach.
In July 2004 Blair found a berth for Mandelson – in the EU Commission. Mandelson was allocated the post of EU Trade Commissioner.
Mandelson announced that, as Commissioner, progressing the Doha round trade talks would be his “paramount priority”. He urged EU “leadership to push for change, even if it is painful”.
Mandelson’s key negotiating tactic – offering to cut average EU agricultural tariffs from 23% to 12% – was greeted with fury in some EU capitals. French President Nicolas Sarkozy was particularly critical. Commissioner Mandelson also riled Europe’s farmers. In the run up to Ireland’s Lisbon Treaty Referendum in June 2008 Mandelson’s approach to agriculture triggered farmer protests. Opponents of the Lisbon Treaty used Mandelson as the symbol of all that was wrong ‘in Brussels’.
The July 2008 collapse of the ‘Doha round’ trade brought another ‘resurrection’ for Mandelson. Gordan Brown who had a bitter falling out with him when Blair was elected party leader, and who opposed his return to cabinet in 2001, brought him back to front line British politics. Brown gave Mandelson a life peerage and appointed him Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and later First Secretary of State.
Following Labour’s defeat in 2010 Mandelson departed political office to establish the London-based lobbying firm Global Counsel with another former Blair aide and the support of WPP, the advertising giant.
Friends with all the wrong people
In addition to Peter Mandelson’s political experience, those supporting his nomination as ambassador highlighted his networking skills and list of personal relationships as major positives. Whatever about his networking skills it was always on the cards that personal contacts could be Mandelson’s downfall. Poor judgement in dealing with problems arising from personal relationships rather than actual wrongdoing was at the heart of Mandelson’s resignations in 1998 and 2001.
While serving as EU Commissioner multiple controversies arose regarding hospitality enjoyed by Mandelson from British, American, Italian and Russian contacts whose businesses had, or were in line to benefit from decisions made at EU level. Hospitality provided by the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, the “king of aluminium” whose company Rusal had benefited from two cuts in EU aluminium import duties came in for particular attention.
Again, while no wrongdoing was proven, the regular flow of controversies put Mandelson’s judgement into question.
The release earlier this month of the infamous Epstein ‘Birthday Book’, Bloomberg’s publication of email exchanges between Mandelson and Epstein and material released by a US Congressional committee put relations between Mandelson and Epstein into the spotlight.
These were not, however, the first suggestions of links between Mandelson and Epstein. Court filings released at the time of Epstein’s death in 2019 suggested that Mandelson, while a member of Gordon Brown’s government had, a decade earlier, stayed in Jeffrey Epstein’s Manhattan home while Epstein himself was in prison. At the time a spokesman told the Guardian that Lord Mandelson has “no recollection or record of staying in Epstein’s house in New York in 2009”.
Implications for Keir Starmer
Lord Mandelson’s sacking came at an inauspicious time for Keir Starmer, dealing as he was with the fallout from the resignation of his Deputy Prime Minister, Angela Reyner, a Cabinet reshuffle and an effort to ‘reset’ his party’s image.
The timing was all the worse as Lord Mandelson’s sacking came on the eve of President Trump’s much anticipated ‘historic second state visit’ to the UK and at a time when Trump himself was trying to tamp down problems with his party, his political base and the American public regarding Jeffrey Epstein.
The immediate priority for Starmer, and Trump, was to ensure that Mandelson’s sacking did not ‘spoil’ the President’s state visit. Extraordinary ‘staging,’ lavish, impeccably choreographed ceremony and impressive media management meant there was no ‘blow up’. As Air Force 1 lifted from Stansted on 18 September there was an audible sigh of relief across the UK.
While the State Visit ended successfully, the removal of an ambassador that he installed only ten months earlier could pull Starmer into potentially choppy waters. The explanations from Downing Street that – while Mandelson’s contacts with Epstein were known at the time of his nomination, the recently published material adds a different dimension to the relationship. The evident failures in Mandelson’s vetting by a government led by the political party in which Mandelson had been a ‘player’ for close on 50 years will be questioned.
It is hard to believe that the drama the ambassadorial sacking of the UK’s “the Prince of Darkness” will be the last thing we will hear about him.
EUalive’s columnist Dick Roche is a former Irish Minister of State for European Affairs. His columns can be found here.
Caption: British Ambassador to the United States Peter Mandelson looks on as US President Donald Trump announces a trade agreement between the United States and the United Kingdom in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, USA, 08 May 2025. EPA/BONNIE CASH / POOL
Updated: September 19, 2025 - 06:07
