The US ambassador was revealed to have written a tribute to his late friend on Epstein’s 50th birthday in documents which were disclosed to the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, the main investigating committee of America’s House of Representatives.
Letters from Epstein’s friends were collated by Ghislaine Maxwell, his convicted sex offender girlfriend and accomplice, and included a tribute from Lord Mandelson describing the disgraced paedophile as an “intelligent, sharp-witted man” who “parachuted” into his life.
Downing Street has backed the ambassador, who was handpicked for the role by Keir Starmer, saying that the Prime Minister retained confidence in Lord Mandelson.
But critics have said that Starmer must dismiss him and that the ambassador faces questions about his association with Epstein.
Scottish Greens MSP Maggie Chapman told The National: “This raises serious questions. Jeffrey Epstein was involved in all sorts of horrific crimes and counted some of the world’s most powerful men among his closest friends.
“At best it was a severe misjudgement for Mandelson to have maintained such a close friendship. But it also tells us something about the way that Epstein cosied up to people in power and how he used their status to protect himself.
READ MORE: Wes Streeting defends Peter Mandelson’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein
“There were a lot of girls and young women who suffered because of Epstein, and they deserve accountability and justice.”
Kenny MacAskill, leader of the Alba Party, added: “The sycophancy of Mandelson’s birthday card to Epstein replicates the sycophancy of Starmer’s Labour Party to the presidency of Donald Trump.
“Mandelson was always an inappropriate appointment as the UK ambassador to the USA. A New Labour placeman with baggage and a chequered past. This simply compounds those initial fears.
“Mandelson must go and a career diplomat be appointed as would normally have been the case.”
Lord Mandelson has previously said that he regrets “ever meeting” Epstein or “being introduced to him” by Maxwell, the daughter of British press baron Robert Maxwell.
Epstein was first convicted for child sex offences in 2008, five years after Lord Mandelson’s birthday message. They were described as having a “particularly close relationship” in a 2019 report by JPMorgan, which also revealed Epstein nicknamed his friend “Petie”.
The report also suggests that in June 2009, while Epstein was in prison for soliciting prostitution from a child, Lord Mandelson stayed in his friend’s Manhattan townhouse in his former role as UK business secretary.
While awaiting trial in 2019 for charges of trafficking children for sex in Florida and New York, Epstein died in his prison cell.
US president Donald Trump maintained a friendship with Epstein and appears to also have written him a birthday message in the book to which Mandelson contributed but the White House has denied this.
The birthday book comes as part of an American investigation into Epstein by the House Oversight Committee, which has proved politically toxic for Trump who at one point branded files linking him with the late financier a “Democrat hoax”.
The British Embassy in Washington was approached for comment.
