Now strip him of his peerage! MPs on all sides demand that Mandelson be expelled from House of Lords

Keir Starmer was under growing pressure to boot Peter Mandelson out of the House of Lords on Monday, as anger mounted over his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.

Furious MPs on all sides called for ‘immediate’ legislation to remove the Labour peer’s title and prevent him ever entering Parliament again.

And there were growing questions about the judgment of both Sir Keir and his chief-of-staff Morgan McSweeney in bringing the disgraced peer back into Government despite his well-known friendship with the paedophile financier.

On Monday there was speculation within Westminster that Mr McSweeney, who masterminded Labour’s landslide victory, could become a ‘sacrificial lamb’ in the coming months as Sir Keir tries to cling to power.

Downing Street said that the Prime Minister now believed Lord Mandelson ‘should not be a member of the House of Lords’ following the release of documents suggesting he took thousands of pounds from Epstein and gave him inside information about what the last Labour government was planning when he served in Cabinet as business secretary.

No 10 claimed the PM ‘does not have the power’ to remove his former friend’s peerage and has instead appealed to the Lords to bring in rules allowing disgraced peers to be expelled. But the claim was rubbished by MPs on all sides, who pointed out that the PM could use emergency legislation to remove his title within days.

Robert Jenrick said Lord Mandelson had ‘clearly broken the law’ and should be expelled from the Lords immediately. Reform is expected to table legislation this week that would allow him to be stripped of his peerage.

And Simon Hoare, Tory chairman of the Commons public administration and constitutional affairs committee, said emergency legislation ‘could be rushed through this House in a day, such is the appetite to make the point’.

The former Cabinet minister finally quit Labour, but Sir Keir Starmer was branded ‘weak’ for failing to kick him out of the party earlier (Pictured: The pair in Washington last year)

In 2022 a picture emerged of Lord Mandelson, who appears to be singing as Epstein blows out the candles on a birthday cake in Epstein’s Paris lair

Labour Left-winger Kim Johnson urged ministers to ‘legislate to remove all the privileges from this awful man as soon as possible’.

Lib Dem MP Max Wilkinson said Lord Mandelson should be struck off by the Privy Council, adding it was time to ‘end the Lord Mandelson charade once and for all’.

Privately, ministers are hoping that he voluntarily agrees to give up his peerage. Although a life peer can stop sitting in the House of Lords, they cannot relinquish their title. An Act of Parliament is required to formally remove a life peerage once it is conferred.

Lord Mandelson has already taken a leave of absence from the Lords and resigned from the Labour Party on Sunday night, shortly after officials began ‘disciplinary action’ against him.

Among the latest revelations, Lord Mandelson’s husband was shown to have received £10,000 from Epstein. And yesterday morning Reinaldo Avila da Silva was spotted outside the couple’s London home looking tense.

It has raised fresh questions about Sir Keir’s decision to bring him back as ambassador to the US.

Veteran MP Clive Efford said it was clear that there were ‘questions that needed to be asked of Lord Mandelson that were not posed in the rush to appoint him’.

And Ian Byrne called for an investigation into ‘who knew what and when about Lord Mandelson before and during his disastrous appointment as ambassador’.

Fellow Labour MP Nadia Whittome said his appointment was ‘naive at best, morally bankrupt at worst.’

Epstein and Mandelson on a yacht in an undated photo

Lord Mandelson talking to a woman in a white bath robe while in his underwear. His spokesman claimed he had ‘no idea’ where it was taken but the interior appears to match the inside of Epstein’s Paris flat, known as the House of Sin

Lord Mandelson has not explained why he posed in his briefs in images contained in the Epstein Files

But Mr Jones insisted that the PM had acted ‘at every stage with integrity’. He said that Sir Keir and his advisers had not known the full extent of the peer’s friendship with Epstein – even though they were warned before his appointment that he had stayed friends with the notorious paedophile following his first jail term.

Mr Jones described Epstein’s crimes as ‘unforgiveable’ – and said the PM had sacked him last September as soon as it became clear he had disputed the financier’s conviction for procuring a minor.

Downing Street today announced that Cabinet Secretary Sir Chris Wormald has been asked to conduct an ‘urgent’ review of ‘all available evidence’ about Epstein’s dealings with Lord Mandelson during his time as a government minister. But MPs said it should be extended to cover his time as ambassador.

Shadow Cabinet Office minister Alex Burghart told MPs that Lord Mandelson had used his role to broker a meeting last February between the PM and US tech firm Palantir, which was a client of the lobbying firm he founded and still held shares in at the time.

Former Labour minister Justin Madders said Lord Mandelson had a ‘very casual relationship with probity’ – and urged

ministers to set out any information they passed to him during his time as ambassador which ‘could have been used to benefit third parties’.