SIR Keir Starmer is sitting on his own British “Epstein Files”, a top Tory has blasted.
Shadow minister Alex Burghart vowed to exhaust every avenue to expose the Prime Minister’s bungled appointment of sacked US Ambassador Peter Mandelson.
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And he warned Labour MPs they would be forced into a vote in Parliament to bring the files to light.
It comes as top Republican congressman James Comer has promised to make public any communication or financial information involving the Duke of York.
After the PM admitted he was aware of a damning cache of emails involving Lord Mandleson’s connections to the dead paedo – despite publicly defending him – the Tories will use a three hour Commons grilling today to turn up the heat.
In a fiery appearance on Harry Cole Saves the West, Mr Burghart hit out: “Right now, everyone agrees Mandelson should never have been appointed… So who is going to take responsibility? At the moment, no one is.”
He added: “We’ve got our own Epstein files here — the Epstein-Mandelson files.
“We want to see what the Prime Minister saw before he went to the House on Wednesday, and what he knew before he appointed Mandelson last year.”
Mr Burghart outlined three scenarios: either Britain’s vaunted vetting system failed, Starmer’s chief of staff Morgan McSweeney withheld crucial information, or the Prime Minister knew about Mandelson’s Epstein ties and pressed ahead anyway.
And vowing to force a vote on publishing the files, Mr Burghart added: “If Labour MPs really want to go out and support a man who was backing a convicted pedophile and sex trafficker.
“Well, good luck to them. But I’m not sure that they have that much love left in their hearts for either Peter Mandelson or, for that matter, the Prime Minister.”
He told our new show: “I’ll be honest with you, Harry, I have been surprised how quickly the Labour Party has cracked over this.
“You’ve got Labour Party members coming out in public saying the Prime Minister needs to go.
“You are you will be well aware that there are Labour MPs briefing openly behind the scenes that this can’t carry on, and that heads this role and in the background to all of this.”
Embattled Sir Keir yesterday admitted knowing Peter Mandelson was under investigation over emails to Jeffrey Epstein when he publicly defended him last week.
The PM finally said he was informed on Wednesday morning of a Foreign Office probe into a trove of correspondence between the ex-US Ambassador and the convicted paedophile.
Yet he chose not to ask for details about the emails’ contents and went on to assert his “full confidence” in the now-sacked diplomat.
The revelation has sparked outrage among Sir Keir’s critics and Labour MPs, who are furious over No.10’s handling of the scandal.
The PM faces fresh pressure today after the Tories were granted a three-hour “emergency debate” on the saga by Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle.
In his first comments since firing the Labour grandee, Sir Keir insisted he would never have appointed Lord Mandelson if he had been fully aware of his ties to Epstein.
The PM declared: “Had I known then what I know now, I’d have never appointed him.”
Defending his decision to back Lord Mandelson during PMQs, he explained: “What I knew before PMQs was that there had been media enquiries.
“I didn’t know the content of the Bloomberg emails, and I knew that questions had been put to Peter that he had not yet answered, and he hadn’t answered them by the time I got to PMQs.
“I knew that there were questions that had been put to him, but I didn’t know what answers he was going to give to those questions.”
Ahead of today’s debate, Tory Leader Kemi Badenoch said: “There are too many unanswered questions around Keir Starmer’s decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as US Ambassador.
“If Keir Starmer won’t face the music himself, we will use this debate in Parliament to pressure the relevant documents out of No10 and the Government.”
Sir Keir publicly defended Lord Mandelson at PMQs last Wednesday, only to sack him the following day after explosive email exchanges with Epstein were revealed.
The leaked messages showed Mandelson urged Epstein to “fight for early release” shortly before the financier was handed an 18-month prison sentence.
One email captured Mandelson telling 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.
Last night the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee demanded mandarins explain the vetting and security processes around Lord Mandelson’s appointment.
Labour committee chair Emily Thornberry said: “The dismissal of Lord Mandelson from the post of UK ambassador to the US raises serious questions about the integrity of our vetting and security processes.”
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