LIVE: Keir Starmer fighting to save premiership

Keir Starmer is expected to speak at a sports centre in East Sussex shortly.

The Prime Minister will seek to move on from the fiasco with a speech focused on reversing community decline, but is likely to face further questions about Lord Mandelson.

Mandelson has quit the House of Lords, resigned from the Labour Party, been removed from the Privy Council and faces a criminal investigation following new revelations from the so-called Epstein files.

His appointment as US ambassador has led to questions surrounding Starmer’s judgment with his political future under threat as a result.

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has predicted the publication of documents relating to Peter Mandelson’s ambassadorial appointment would lead to more trouble for Keir Starmer as well as Morgan McSweeney’s departure.

She told LBC:

I think that those papers are going to show all sorts of terrible decision-making and bad judgment by the Labour Government. I think Keir Starmer is only going to get into more trouble.

Mrs Badenoch will hold a press conference in Westminster later on Thursday morning, where she is expected to keep up pressure on the Prime Minister.

Here is the moment Keir Starmer tried to get on the front foot over the Peter Mandelson scandal at PMQs yesterday.

In response to the first question posed by Kemi Badenoch, the Prime Minister said Mandelson’s actions in emailing Epstein at the time of the global financial crash were ‘beyond infuriating’.

He said he was angry with Mandelson for lying ‘before and during’ his tenure as US ambassador.

Watch the video below:

Nigel Farage has told a rally in Wales he wants Keir Starmer to remain Prime Minister until the local elections in May.

The Reform leader said Starmer’s presence in Downing Street would benefit his party, joking he wanted him to ‘stay forever’.

He told a rally in Wales:

“This is far bigger than the Profumo scandal 60 years ago. This is the biggest scandal in British politics for over one century. And I would predict pretty confidently that Morgan McSweeney, the chief adviser, will be gone pretty quickly.

I don’t know how Starmer will last as Prime Minister. Indeed, I’m very worried about it. I want him to stay forever. When I say forever I mean until May 7, when we have the elections in Wales, Scotland, London and around the rest of the country.

Mail on Sunday columnist Dan Hodges hears Keir Starmer will attempt to ‘clarify’ his remarks in the Commons that he was aware of Peter Mandelson’s ongoing relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

The Prime Minister’s response to a question put forward by Kemi Badenoch sparked widespread anger across the Labour backbenches which has left him today fighting for political survival.

Starmer is scheduled to speak in Sussex later today on his plan to save Britain’s high streets.

New files relating to Keir Starmer’s appointment of Peter Mandelson as US ambassador will add more fuel to a scandal that could propel him out of Downing Street.

The Prime Minister has been forced to order the publication of a trove of papers after Kemi Badenoch forced a Commons vote on the issue.

The files will include details of what Lord Mandelson told Starmer and Morgan McSweeney about the nature of his relationship with Epstein.

This could prove deeply damaging to Starmer, who admitted for the first time yesterday that he appointed the New Labour grandee despite knowing he had remained friends with Epstein after his conviction.

It’s understood Starmer asked Mandelson three questions before appointing him to Washington. He asked why Mandelson:

1. Why he continued contact with Epstein after he was convicted
2. Why he stayed in Epstein’s home while he was in prison
3. Was he associated with a charity founded by Epstein.

WhatsApp exchanges sent on private phones may be included, as could information relating to negotiations around the ‘golden goodbye’ paid to Lord Mandelson after his sacking.

But last night there were doubts about how much material would be released after the Metropolitan Police warned against publishing anything that could undermine its criminal investigation into Lord Mandelson’s activities.

Another Labour backbencher has today declared Keir Starmer will have to make a decision about his future as he urged him to ditch his closest aides over the ‘shoddy advice’ he has received in Downing Street.

Karl Turner, MP for Kingston Upon Hull East, said the atmosphere in the Commons was the ‘angriest’ he had witnessed after Starmer admitted he knew Peter Mandelson and Jeffrey Epstein had an ongoing relationship at the time he was appointed US ambassador.

Mr Turner told Times Radio he forwarded messages from people expressing their anger directly to the prime minister last night.

He thanked me, and I suspect he thanked those who were then messaging him.

My advice to the prime minister is get rid of those advisers who have frankly given terrible advice to him over weeks and months. The PM needs to deal with that and make a decision. If the PM decides he has to be surrounded by advisers who give him shoddy advice the reality of that is the prime minister is going to have to make a decision about his future some point soon

If McSweeney is still in 10 Downing Street the PM is up against it.

Labour MP and former shadow chancellor John McDonnell has called for a ‘caretaker leader’ to replace Keir Starmer in the wake of the Mandelson scandal.

Mr McDonnell, a key figure under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, said he had lost confidence in Starmer and that there needed to be a ‘cleansing of our party and politics’.

He made the remarks on X.

by Stephen Glover

The downfall of Peter Mandelson is an immense event in British politics. This bad, and now disgraced, man has been a key figure in the Labour Party for over 30 years.

When he published his memoirs in 2010, he simply called them The Third Man – the suggestion being that, after Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, he was the next most important figure during Labour’s rule from 1997 to 2010.

For once in his life Mandelson told the truth. He was Blair’s most influential lieutenant and did more than anyone else to help him achieve power. Later, from 2008, he served Gordon Brown, although the two men had hated each other.

In Mandelson’s memoirs (in which his friend the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein had a hand, as emails released by the US Department of Justice show) Brown comes across as virtually psychotic.

Mandelson occupied three senior positions in the Cabinet and ended up as First Secretary of State, which meant that he was effectively deputy prime minister to Brown.

He has been central to Labour, serving not only Blair and Brown but also Keir Starmer, as British ambassador to Washington, before revelations about his close relations with Epstein forced his resignation last September.

One of Keir Starmer’s former senior aides has claimed Peter Mandelson should have been kicked out of Labour at the time he was sacked as Britain’s ambassador to Washington.

James Lyons, who left his role as was director of strategic communications at Downing Street in September, told Sky News:

It was a mistake to allow him to remain in the Labour Party back in the autumn. I think it would be much better to take action then to remove him, rather than let him resign this week.

On his appointment in the first place, Lyons added:

I think people knew that this was a high risk, high reward strategy, but I don’t think anyone knew quite how risky it was/

Keir Starmer endured a painful day in the Commons yesterday and his humiliation was further compounded through AI as he appeared with Peter Mandelson in a video for Barry Manilow’s hit Mandy.

The men were ruthlessly mocked in the video with the record’s lyrics reworked to poke fun at the Mandelson scandal.

Lyrics include: ‘Well Mandy, you came and you lied without breaking. but I sent you away oh Mandy.’

Watch the video be

Some MPs have been talking up the credentials of defence minister Al Carns (pictured), although he has only been in Parliament since 2024.

Ed Miliband would also be in the frame as a replacement should Starmer be engulfed imminently, but has insisted he does not want the job.

One senior Labour source told the Daily Mail: ‘Would any credible challenger go before the by election or before May? That’s not tempting.’

Labour rules require one candidate to get nominations from 80 MPs in order to mount a challenge.

One senior Labour source told the Daily Mail: ‘Would any credible challenger go before the by election or before May? That’s not tempting.’