Lord Peter Mandelson has resigned from the Labour Party to ‘avoid causing further embarrassment’ amid claims he received $75,000 from Jeffrey Epstein.
The peer, who was sacked as US ambassador last year because of his links to Epstein, featured in documents released by the US Department of Justice on Friday relating to the paedophile financier.
In one extraordinary photograph, the politician appears to be standing in his underpants chatting to a woman in a white bath robe in one of the paedophile’s homes.
A source close to Lord Mandelson said that the peer had no recollection of the photograph being taken and had no idea where it was taken or who had taken it.
In an update this evening, Lord Mandelson said he had written to Hollie Ridley, general secretary of the Labour Party to say he was stepping down from his party membership.
In his letter, he said: ‘I have been further linked this weekend to the understandable furore surrounding Jeffrey Epstein and I feel regretful and sorry about this.
‘Allegations which I believe to be false that he made financial payments to me 20 years ago, and of which I have no record or recollection, need investigating by me.
‘While doing this I do not wish to cause further embarrassment to the Labour Party and I am therefore stepping down from membership of the party.’
The photograph, which has been released as part of the Epstein files, apparently shows Lord Mandelson, the UK’s former ambassador to the US, talking to a woman who is wearing a white bath robe
A source close to Lord Mandelson said that the peer (pictured) had no recollection of the photograph being taken and had no idea where it was taken or who had taken it (file image)
A source close to Lord Mandelson said that the peer had no recollection of the photograph being taken and had no idea where it was taken or who had taken it.
Wearing a dark T-shirt and white Y-fronts, Lord Mandelson – who was fired as the UK’s ambassador to the US last September when the depth of his links to Epstein became public – appears to casually chat to the young woman.
The former Labour Cabinet minister points to a computer tablet inside what appears to be a room inside Epstein’s New York mansion.
New emails released on Friday as part of three million documents related to the child sex offender show Epstein sent £10,000 to Mandelson’s Brazilian husband Reinaldo Avila da Silva to pay for an osteopathy course.
Da Silva emailed Epstein on September 7, 2009 – two months after the paedophile was released from prison after serving 12 months of an 18-month sentence on child sex offences – and asked for money.
At the time, Mandelson was business secretary and in a relationship with Da Silva. The pair married in 2023.
This is a breaking news story – more to follow
