Pressure is growing on the position of Keir Starmer’s chief of staff Morgan McSweeney after it emerged that he was sent a memo warning him against Peter Mandelson being appointed as ambassador to the US.
The memo from Lord Maurice Glasman, the founder of the influential Blue Labour group, was sent while the peer was in Washington DC for Donald Trump’s inauguration.
He warned: “Withdraw Peter Mandelson. He is the wrong man at the wrong time in the wrong place.”
MPs and ministers have been pressing the prime minister to sack Mr McSweeney who is understood to have been the one who pushed for Mandelson to be appointed to the UK’s most important diplomatic position.
Mandelson was eventually sacked in September last year as details emerged of his ongoing relationship with the convicted paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein. But at the time Mr McSweeney is believed to have pleaded with Sir Keir not to sack Mandelson.
However, as first revealed by The Independent, the incoming Trump administration was opposed to Mandelson’s appointment and was considering rejecting his credentials if Sir Keir pushed the appointment.
In his memo, first published by the Telegraph, Lord Glasman, who attended a pre-inauguration party hosted by Nigel Farage, suggested that the Reform UK leader would be a better choice for the role than the then Labour peer.
He said: “The vast majority of people I met… consider our appointment of Peter Mandelson an unnecessary provocation.”
Lord Glasman warned: “Do not make another appointment until you have clarified your strategy. The obvious person is Farage if you can find it in yourselves to be so bold.
“He has a close relationship with Trump, Vance with Bannon. They like him more since he fell out with Elon.
“I think he would be tempted, and then Reform would be neutralised, and he would be bound to us. Offer him a knighthood.”
He also argued that Mandelson’s predecessor Dame Karen Pierce, who also attended the pre-inauguration party at the Hay Adams Hotel in Washington, should not be rushed out of the job.
He said Dame Karen was doing “a fine holding job” and had “not p—ed them off, which is a great achievement in itself”.
Sources from the Trump team at the time had also told The Independent that they preferred Dame Karen to stay on after she had properly engaged with them following his re-election.
The memo is further evidence for Labour parliamentarians questioning the judgement of both Mr McSweeney and the prime minister over the Mandelson appointment.
The Trump administration had been concerned about his close ties to China but also his association with Epstein.
At the time Trump was coming in with a promise to publish the Epstein papers.
Sir Keir admitted last week that he and his team knew that Mandelson had maintained his relationship with Epstein after the financier was imprisoned. Mandelson has previously expressed his regret for his continued association with Epstein and apologised “unequivocally to the women and the girls who suffered”.
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