No 10 officials were aware of emails between Peter Mandelson and Jeffrey Epstein before Sir Keir Starmer defended the peer during Prime Minister’s Questions.
But the PM is understood not to have been aware of their contents until Wednesday evening, after he told the Commons he had “confidence” in his ambassador, a situation a Labour MP has condemned as “embarrassing”.
Olivia Blake also called for her party to look at forcing the peer to give up his plum seat in the House of Lords in the wake of the furore – hours after fellow backbencher Clive Lewis hit out at Sir Keir saying he “doesn’t seem up to the job”.
Sir Keir, who picked the Labour grandee to be the UK’s man in Washington, sacked him after the publication of the emails, which showed Lord Mandelson sent supportive messages even as Epstein faced jail for sex offences.
The Foreign Office is understood to have received a media enquiry outlining details of the messages on Tuesday, which was passed on to No 10.
Sir Oliver Robbins, the permanent under-secretary at the Foreign Office, asked Lord Mandelson about the emails but did not hear back until Wednesday afternoon. But, with pressure mounting over their contents, the ambassador was sacked on Thursday morning.
No 10 and the Foreign Office said the emails showed “the depth and extent” of Lord Mandelson’s relationship with Epstein was “materially different from that known at the time of his appointment”.
The emails were sent from an account which had long been closed and were not available to Lord Mandelson during the vetting process, the government understands.
Allies of the peer, who has now resigned from Labour governments three times, told The Times that he admitted during his vetting interview for the role that he continued the relationship with Epstein for many years.
Sir Keir and his team are now facing questions over what they knew and when about the ex-ambassador’s ties to Epstein, as well as over their judgement in appointing him in the first place.
Ms Blake, the MP for Sheffield Hallam, who is on the left of the party, said it was “really embarrassing” if Sir Keir was not told about Lord Mandelson’s emails to Epstein soon enough.
“We saw through the welfare reforms that they did the same again. They didn’t tell Keir, they didn’t tell the prime minister how bad it was on the backbenches,” she said.
She added: “I just think that whoever’s gatekeeping the information to the prime minister needs to stop. They need to be getting stuff to him much earlier.”
The PM has scrambled to defend his chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, amid growing pressure over his involvement in the appointment of Lord Mandelson.
Sir Keir insisted he had confidence in Mr McSweeney following reports he personally pushed for him, despite concerns over his links with Epstein.
Former foreign secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind has suggested that the PM will have to decide if Mr McSweeney is “a suitable adviser for the future, depending on what did actually happen”.
A Labour MP, who asked not to be named for fear of repercussions, told The Independent: “Should Morgan McSweeney be in Downing Street? No, of course he should not. He is part of a toxic political culture around the PM.”
Former Labour shadow chancellor John McDonnell has also warned: “A choice is emerging for Keir. Either McSweeney goes or he does.”
Dame Emily Thornberry, chair of parliament’s foreign affairs committee, is demanding answers from the foreign secretary on the vetting process for Lord Mandelson.
His friendship with Epstein was known before his appointment, but reports in The Sun and Bloomberg showed their relationship continued after the financier’s crimes had emerged.
Emails published on Wednesday afternoon included passages in which Lord Mandelson told Epstein to “fight for early release” shortly before he was sentenced to 18 months in prison.
He is also reported to have told Epstein, “I think the world of you” the day before the disgraced financier began his sentence for soliciting prostitution from a minor in June 2008.
Sir Keir is under pressure after the second scandal-hit departure for the government in a week, after Angela Rayner quit over her tax affairs.
Backbencher Clive Lewis publicly questioned Sir Keir’s leadership, telling the BBC the prime minister does not seem “up to the job”.
Barry Gardiner, another MP from the party’s backbenches, said “toxic” resentment was festering among the party’s MPs and rank-and-file members.
Lucy Powell, one of two candidates in the race to take Ms Rayner’s place as the Labour Party’s deputy leader, called for a “change of culture”.
“We’ve got a bit of a groupthink happening at the top, that culture of not being receptive to interrogation, not being receptive to differing views,” she told The Guardian.
But the new foreign secretary Yvette Cooper said during a trip to Ukraine that the decision to sack Lord Mandelson had been “rightly taken” as she backed Sir Keir’s “strong leadership”.
Scotland secretary Douglas Alexander told BBC Breakfast he understood why Labour MPs were “despondent” after the past week’s events, but insisted action had been taken.
