The disgraced Labour grandee Peter Mandelson appears to have kept ties with Conservatives long after his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein emerged, reports Martin Williams.
Peter Mandelson, then-British ambassador to the U.S., Feb. 8, 2025. (UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, CC-2.0)
By Martin Williams
Declassified UK
Peter Mandelson claimed he conducted unofficial diplomacy with Israel on behalf of the last Conservative government after fresh details of his ties to Jeffrey Epstein had emerged, Declassified has found.
The disgraced Labour grandee said he raised questions with the Israeli government in the early months of the Palestinian genocide “on behalf” of then-foreign secretary, David Cameron, who returned to government in November 2023.
New details of Mandelson’s friendship with Epstein had emerged in June that year, with U.K. media outlets reporting that he stayed in contact with the billionaire long after his conviction for child sex offences.
Yet Mandelson boasted about an apparent role with Rishi Sunak’s government months later during a Zoom call with a former Israeli military spokesman in April 2024.
The revelation comes as the Conservatives are heavily criticising Labour for appointing Mandelson as British ambassador to Washington, saying he should have had no role in U.K. foreign policy once details of his ties to Epstein became known.
Cameron did not initially respond to requests for comment. But since this article was published, his spokesperson has said he does not recognise Mandelson’s claims.
[Mandelson is being investigated for giving insider government information to Epstein. The former Prince Andrew was arrested on Wednesday and is being investigated for a similar alleged abuse of power.
During Andrew’s time as Britain’s special representative for trade and investment documents reportedly show that he shared confidential government information regarding trade with Epstein.]
Personal Gain?
Mandelson’s Zoom meeting took place weeks after three British aid workers were killed by Israel in Gaza.
It was organised by the European Leadership Network (ELNET), which describes itself as “the most influential pro-Israel advocacy organisation in Europe.” A recording was later published on its YouTube channel.
The video shows Mandelson saying:
“[The Israeli government is] allowing aid to come in through Ashdod port, which they have been asked to do repeatedly by its allies since the beginning of the year.
Indeed, I did myself on behalf of the Foreign Secretary when I was in Israel.”
He also suggested that he had been in discussions days earlier with the head of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the Israeli defence ministry unit overseeing policies and coordinating aid in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Mandelson concluded his comments on the Zoom call by saying: “The [Israeli] government might be better off if it listened more to the IDF. If you can pass on that one.”
A spokesperson for the U.K. Foreign Office refused to comment about Mandelson’s stated role, saying it would be inappropriate for them to discuss allegations against the previous government.
Then Foreign Secretary, David Cameron meets with Israeli President Isaac Herzog in Israel, November 2023. (Simon Dawson / Flickr, No 10 Downing Street , CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Cameron’s spokesperson said of the Mandelson claims:
“We do not recognise this at all. Peter Mandelson was never asked to represent Lord Cameron or the government on foreign affairs.
It was, however, the government’s policy to ask Israel repeatedly to open Ashdod Port to allow for more aid to flow into Gaza, something Lord Cameron regularly referred to in the House of Lords and in the media.”
At the time, Mandelson did not hold any official government positions and was still director of his lobbying firm, Global Counsel.
The company’s clients include the spy tech company Palantir, co-founded by Jeffrey Epstein’s “great friend” Peter Thiel.
John McDonnell, the former Labour shadow chancellor, told Declassified: “The question to be asked about Mandelson’s involvement in any political or diplomatic venture is whether its motive was public service or personal gain.”
Mandelson’s diplomatic efforts are likely to have come in January 2024, when he attended an ELNET trip to Israel.
The delegation included former Conservative Party leader Lord Michael Howard and the former director of Conservative Friends of Israel, Lord Stuart Polak.
They spent an hour with the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, as well as attending a military briefing from the IDF and dining with “high-ranking Israeli policy makers.”
During the trip Mandelson attended an ELNET dinner where Britain’s ambassador to Israel was present.
One delegate later said that the Israeli side “came to talk to us and not to listen,” adding: “Israel needs an election soon to get rid of these terrible politicians.”
Children in Gaza rummaging through ruins and trash posing catastrophic environmental and health risks, July 2024. (Ashraf Amra /UNRWA/Wikimedia Commons/ CC BY-SA 3.0)
The independent MP Zarah Sultana told Declassified:
“It is another stain on our democracy that Peter Mandelson was conducting unofficial diplomacy with Israel while it was committing genocide in Gaza and doing so ‘on behalf of’ the foreign secretary.
This is the same rotten pattern we keep seeing: a political establishment that operates through shadowy back channels, beyond democratic scrutiny, where the same well-connected figures resurface again and again no matter how many scandals trail behind them.”
She added:
“The government must urgently remove Palantir from all public contracts and establish a full independent public inquiry into Peter Mandelson’s role, his contacts, and who he was really working for.”
The Conservative Party and Global Counsel did not respond to questions from Declassified.
Martin Williams is Declassified UK’s chief investigator. He previously worked for The Guardian, Channel 4 News and openDemocracy, where he was U.K. investigations editor. His book, Parliament Ltd, exposed widespread corruption in British politics and sparked multiple inquiries by Westminster authorities.
This article is from Declassified UK.
Views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
hopefully not a show to keep him quiet .
We’ll see
Family ?
Thank you. Just more shocking yet typical corrupted behavior. Entire Western aka Capitalist world governments need overhaul, guillotine, worker rebolt, homegrown luigis, Hague cages with keys lost.
“They’ll get it all from you sooner or later ’cause they own this f**kin’ place. It’s a big club and you ain’t in it. You and I are not in the big club.” -George Carlin.
Everyone high up in the very misnamed “Labour Party” has close and friendly ties with the members of the “Conservative Party.” They are currently implementing the exact same foreign policy as their Tory friends, and the same policy of Austerity aimed at the suffering British people. And yet, despite the fact that these people are all obviously playing for the same team, we are supposed to be shocked at the notion that their might be contacts and friendly relations between the two groups?
And that is more true in Britain, which never even symbolically tried to eliminate class privilege. The only thing Britain did change is that now class is based entirely on how much money one has, and the question of “Who’s Your Daddy?” is of less importance. But it is still the same highly class based society that Britain has always maintained in its centuries long struggle against democracy, liberty, equality and freedom.
Now, everyone look surprised when we are told that the grandees of the ruling class all know each other. Its a big club. But not so big that you can become a member. Well, not without an entry fee of several Billion pounds.
If the reader being “surprised” were the only criteria of news judgment, plenty of informative articles fleshing out a subject would never be published.
The royal formally known as Prince Andrew is just the low hanging fruit in the Epstein affair. Is there any real evidence that he actually broke any laws or is the current furore a smokescreen for the likes of Mandelson, Starmer, Cameron, Blair, etc.
The UK Labour Party, under Starmer, is known in some circles as the Pedo Party because of its protection of multiple, prosecuted, pedophiles within its ranks. Starmer has past form in protecting the abuser Jimmy Saville, and has recently had questions raised over Ukranian rent boys.
Prince Andrew is obviously an idiot, the result of hundreds of years of inbreeding, but is he the real villian ?
What about the current toady head of the British government itself, Keir Starmer?
And then there’s the former U.S. accomplice in the killings of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi children, Tony Blair, to name but one of this man’s too many misdeeds to cite them all.
What is the measure of the most heinous of crimes?
Depends on who the Judges are!