High-ranking Epstein politician faces calls to strip him of his honor
Britain’s Lord Peter Mandelson is facing mounting pressure to be stripped of his honor after refusing to apologize directly to Jeffrey Epstein’s victims, in a position that has fueled anger over the political establishment’s ties to the disgraced financier.
RadarOnline.com can reveal the 72-year-old Labor Party colleague is under fire after his first broadcast interview since being removed as British ambassador to the United States in September, following the emergence of emails showing he remained friends with Epstein even after the American was convicted in 2008 of soliciting prostitution from a minor.
Mandelson, a former minister and close ally of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, was given a life peerage in 2008 and continues to serve in Britain’s House of Lords.
His situation has sparked comparisons to Andrew Windsor, 65, who has been stripped of his royal military titles and HRH style over his relationship with pedophile Epstein.
In his new interview Mandelson told the BBC about Epstein: “I never saw anything in his life when I was with him, when I was in his houses, that would give me any reason to suspect what this evil monster was doing in preying on these young women.”
When asked if he would apologize, Mandelson said: “I want to apologize to those women for a system that refused to hear their voices and didn’t provide them with the protection they had a right to expect.”
And when asked whether he would apologize for his friendship with Epstein after his conviction, Lord Mandelson added: ‘If I had known, if I was in any way complicit or guilty, of course I would apologise, but I was not guilty, I had no knowledge (of) what he did, and I regret, and will regret to my dying day, the fact that powerless women were not given the protection they had a right to expect.’
Emails showed Mandelson told Epstein to “fight for parole” just before he was sentenced to 18 months in prison.
He is also said to have told serial abuser Epstein, “I think the world is yours,” the day before the disgraced financier began his prison sentence.
When asked why he stuck with the sex beast, Mandelson said: “It was a terrible mistake on my part. I believed the story he told in 2008 in his first indictment in Florida, I accepted his story.”
The comments sparked immediate reactions from political rivals, including the Scottish National Party, which is preparing to table a motion demanding Mandelson’s removal from the House of Lords.
Westminster leader Stephen Flynn said after the broadcast of Mandelson’s interview: ‘It is absolutely sickening that Keir Starmer continues to allow Peter Mandelson to sit in the House of Lords.
“Rather than showing remorse, Peter Mandelson is basking in attention while refusing to apologize for his association with Epstein, a man he said ‘thought the world’.”
Mandelson focused on emails revealed last year in which he told Epstein he “thought the world of him,” describing them as “toe-curling” and “embarrassing.”
British Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said Mandelson had shown “at best a profound naivete” in his comments.
She added: “It would have gone a long way for the women who were subjected to the most abhorrent treatment by Jeffrey Epstein if Peter had apologized and taken that opportunity.”
She said of his ongoing relationship with Epstein: “If anyone I was associated with was in that situation, I wouldn’t touch him or her with a barge.”
