How the Epstein files are upending U.K. politics

0:002026 has not been great for UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer. You can hear it already in this interview with the BBC a few days after the new year. You seem very cheerful, and some people might be almost surprised that you're optimistic, because you've had a very torrid time. I mean, I thought your resolution might be that you're still sitting in that seat by 2027. Well, I will be sitting in this seat by 2027, and if this long-form interview works, we can try it again in January of next year as well. Starmer's approval rating was already poor, before one of his close political allies showed up in his underwear in photographs released in the latest batch of the U.S.

0:35Department of Justice's Jeffrey Epstein files. The ensuing scandal has pushed out Keir Starmer's chief of staff and his communications director, and it may yet cost Starmer his premiership as well. Here in the U.S., the reaction to the Epstein files has been different. I think it's really time for the country to get onto something else. Now that nothing came out about me, other than there was a conspiracy against me. That's President Trump last week. It is true that nothing released in the documents so far implicates Trump and Epstein's abuse. And nothing refutes Trump's longstanding claim that he had a falling out with Epstein 20-odd years ago.

1:11But plenty of influential figures in politics, business, and academia do appear in the documents, including some of Trump's allies. Take his Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick. Last year, he told the New York Post that he met Epstein for coffee once in 2005 after they became neighbors. My wife and I decided that I will never be in the room with that disgusting person ever again. So I was never in the room with him socially, for business, or even philanthropy. If that guy was there, I wasn't going because he's gross. The new files show that, in fact, the men continued to correspond and even suggest that they met on Epstein's private island.

1:56A Commerce Department spokesperson told USA Today that Lutnick had, quote, limited interactions with Mr. Epstein in the presence of his wife and has never been accused of wrongdoing. Republican Representative Thomas Massey of Kentucky told CNN this weekend that Lutnick should take a lesson from across the pond. He should just resign. I mean, there are three people in Great Britain that have resigned in politics. The ambassador from Great Britain to the United States, the prince lost his title for less than what we've seen Howard Lutnick lie about. Consider this. In contrast to American politics, the release of the Epstein files has had real consequences in the UK.

2:33We'll dig into why.

2:38From NPR, I'm Scott Detrow.

2:48It's Consider This from NPR. Revelations in the Epstein files had already made Prince Andrew the former Prince Andrew. This week, his brother King Charles expressed his profound concern over allegations about Andrew and said the palace was ready to, quote, support any police investigation into the matter. The latest batch of documents has also forced one-time ambassador to the U.S., Peter Mandelson, to resign from Britain's House of Lords and from the Labour Party. The fallout is threatening Britain's ruling government. So what is going on here and why at first glance are the revelations leading to more consequences in the UK than the US?

3:24I took these questions to Edward Luce. He's the chief US commentator for the Financial Times. Let's start with that former British ambassador to the US, Peter Mandelson. Remind us what his role in politics and within the Labour Party was before these revelations. Well, he's been a sort of storied figure on the UK left for decades. He was the co-architect with Tony Blair, of Tony Blair's New Labour, Third Way Politics, close ties with the Clintons. And so he's considered to be one of the great figures of the British Labour Party, but he's also one of the most controversial figures of modern British politics because of his questionable ethics.

4:05Three times now, he's been fired. On the topic of questionable ethics, there's a few things that really jumped out and made headlines and this latest trove of files. What specifically led to his ouster from the House of Lords and this kind of escalating pressure on Starmer's government? So it turns out that in 2008, during the peak of the global financial crisis, Mandelson, who was then serving the British Labour government led by Gordon Brown, was in contact with Epstein and in fact passing on to Epstein privileged insider information from within Gordon Brown's government about a number of market-moving, market-sensitive things.

4:45So this is considered to be in breach of several laws and one of the biggest political scandals in many years to have hit Britain. And how does that tie to Keir Starmer, who it's fair to say was under tremendous pressure already, low in the public opinion polls? Is it fair to say his government was already kind of teetering on the edge before this? Keir Starmer's been in trouble for many, many months. His party's opinion poll is rating way below Nigel Farage's pro-MAGA reform party in the opinion polls. He's got a massive majority and yet seems to be going nowhere with it. And his appointment of Mandelson as Britain's ambassador, in spite of knowing of at least some of Mandelson's former association with Jeffrey Epstein, is just another stick with which to beat his government.

5:37It shows lack of judgment. It shows the sort of failure to take control that Starmer, with such a big majority so recently, had been promising to deliver. So it's potentially the end of his prime ministership. How quickly do you think that would come? As we talk Monday afternoon, you've had a couple high-profile labor figures calling for him to resign, but a lot more people in his government sticking with him, at least for now. And then you mentioned Gordon Brown. I saw over the weekend, he was taking several shots at Keir Starmer, which seemed unusual to me. Yes, he did. I mean, Gordon Brown is furious.

6:15He feels betrayed by Mandelson. And I think probably as concerned as anybody else in the broader labor movement in Britain about a government that appears to be failing. So it's quite hard under the Labour Party's rules to remove a leader, a prime minister. Much easier for conservatives to do it, if you remember Liz Truss, the famous 49-day premiership. But it looks like he's wobbling. And I should add that he lost over the weekend his chief strategist and chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney. He has gone, So he no longer has a strategist. There is blood in the water, as the cliche goes. Yeah. I want to zoom out after this, but I did want to get a quick update from you on the former Prince Andrew.

7:03I mean, this has been going on for so long, he's been disgraced and disgraced again so many times that a movie has been made, produced, and released about his disgrace tied to Jeffrey Epstein. And yet there was still more way to be marginalized over the past week, wasn't there? Yes. I mean, Andrew has become a sort of national symbol of shame and embarrassment and a bit of a joke. People refer to him as the Andrew formerly known as Prince. The recent Department of Justice, you know, three million page release, Andrew's name is all over that. And so even though he's been deprived of his title and his royal standing and indeed the money that comes with it and the property that comes with it, it looks like he's got further to fall.

7:51You've paid attention to this in the US. You've paid attention to this in the UK. Why do you think it is that there seem to be more consequences, right now at least, in Britain than in America? I think the big difference is probably the fact that the president, Donald Trump, seems to have no interest in further revelations or inquiries related to the Epstein files. Keir Starmer has been forced, in order to try and defend his job, into supporting strong London Metropolitan Police criminal investigations into Peter Mandelson for his own political survival, whereas I think it appears that President Trump's instincts are quite the opposite, that He wants to move on, turn the page from the Epstein scandal, allegedly, according to Trump's critics, for his own political survival.

8:47So their instincts are divergent. That's Edward Luce, U.S. national editor and columnist for The Financial Times. Thanks for talking about this with us. It's a pleasure. Thank you. And just to note, Peter Mandelson has not responded to NPR's inquiries and has not commented on the apparent emails between him and Jeffrey Epstein. Keir Starmer says he regrets appointing Mandelson as ambassador, but he's not planning to step down. And the former Prince Andrew consistently denies all wrongdoing. This episode was produced by Jordan Marie Smith and Connor Donovan with audio engineering by Hannah Glovna.

9:20It was edited by Patrick Jaron Wadanan and Michael Levin. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigan.

9:30It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Scott Detrow. Thank you.