BBC confirms previously blocked memo details PM’s meeting with future sex offender, orchestrated by Peter Mandelson and noted by Bill Clinton.
LONDON – Downing Street hosted Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier, for a private meeting with then-Prime Minister Sir Tony Blair in 2002, the BBC can now confirm, following the release of a secret government memo that officials had suppressed for years.
The meeting, which took place six years before Epstein’s first criminal conviction for soliciting a minor, was actively lobbied for by Lord Peter Mandelson and was noted as having the backing of former US President Bill Clinton, according to emails seen by BBC News. Tony Blair met Jeffrey Epstein while prime minister.
The revelations, emerging from documents recently unburied by the National Archives, cast a new and uncomfortable light on the access granted to Epstein within the highest echelons of British power and the subsequent efforts to keep the encounter from public view.
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The Downing Street Memo
The key document is a briefing memo written by Sir Matthew Rycroft, then a senior Downing Street foreign policy aide, dated 14 May 2002. The memo briefs Sir Tony on the “super-rich” financial adviser ahead of a meeting scheduled for 5:00 PM GMT that day in the Prime Minister’s official residence.
The briefing, prepared for the Prime Minister, would have served as Epstein’s introduction to the British leader, though it contains no indication that officials were aware of any criminality at the time.
The meeting places Sir Tony among the growing list of global power brokers, politicians, and royalty who associated with Epstein before the full extent of his crimes – for which he was later arrested and died in a New York jail in 2019 – became public.
“A Friend of Mine”: Mandelson’s Lobbying
Emails obtained by the BBC reveal the direct role played by Lord Mandelson, a pivotal architect of New Labour, in orchestrating the encounter. Lord Mandelson told Sir Tony’s powerful chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, that Epstein was “a friend of mine.”
Crucially, he leveraged the financier’s high-profile American connections, stating that ex-President Bill Clinton “hoped to introduce [Epstein] to the PM,” applying significant transatlantic pressure to secure the face-to-face meeting.
In response to the BBC’s findings, a spokesperson for Sir Tony Blair issued a statement acknowledging the meeting.
“As far as he can remember, Mr Blair met with him for less than 30 minutes in Downing Street in 2002, and discussed US and UK politics. He never met or engaged with him subsequently,” the spokesperson said, adding a key caveat: “This was, of course, long before his crimes were known of and his subsequent conviction.”
Suppression and Release
The release of the Rycroft memo and related documents follows a years-long battle. Government officials had previously blocked their publication, citing concerns about the potential impact on “UK-US relations.”
Their release now comes through a Freedom of Information request to the National Archives, and in the wake of Lord Mandelson’s recent sacking from his role as the UK’s trade ambassador to the US. That dismissal came after fresh revelations about the depth of his friendship with Epstein, forcing a new reckoning with a chapter that many in Whitehall had sought to keep closed.
The emergence of this document not only confirms long-held suspicions but also raises urgent questions about the networks of influence that allowed a man like Epstein to operate in the shadows of global power, and the lengths taken to obscure those connections long after his crimes were known.
Mandelson Lobbied for Epstein with Cryptic “Safe” Assurance in Email to Blair’s Top Aide
In a bombshell email that raises fresh questions about Jeffrey Epstein’s access to the highest levels of power, Lord Peter Mandelson assured Tony Blair’s chief of staff that the financier was “safe,” a newly released document reveals, as he aggressively lobbied for a face-to-face meeting with the sitting Prime Minister.
The email, sent to Jonathan Powell – who now serves as the UK government’s national security adviser – on 7 May 2002, provides an unprecedented look into the deliberate campaign to bring Epstein into the Prime Minister’s orbit, leveraging the influence of former US President Bill Clinton and brushing aside apparent earlier resistance from within Blair’s office.
The document, released by the National Archives, contains Lord Mandelson’s direct personal vouching for Epstein, describing him as a “young and vibrant” scientific catalyst and financial guru, before deploying a single, deeply cryptic word that now echoes with implication: “He is safe (whatever that means).”
The Lobbying Campaign
The email reveals a concerted effort to overcome previous obstacles. “Do you remember when Clinton saw TB [Tony Blair] he said he wanted to introduce his travelling friend, Jeffrey Epstein, to TB?” Mandelson writes to Powell. “This was frustrated – TB said at the time – in the office for reasons (he says) he was unclear about.”
Mandelson, then a backbench MP following two cabinet resignations but still a formidable force in New Labour, positions himself as the essential fixer, reactivating Clinton’s original request. He paints Epstein as an indispensable contact, stating he “has his finger on the pulse of many worldwide markets and currencies” and that “Clinton is now doing a lot of travelling with him.”
He reveals he has already secured Blair’s provisional agreement, writing: “I mentioned to TB that Jeffrey is in London next week and he said he would like to meet him.”
“Safe (Whatever That Means)”
The most striking element of the email is the parenthetical aside that follows Mandelson’s assurance of Epstein’s character. The phrase “(whatever that means)” suggests a casual, almost flippant tone, but also indicates an awareness that the term “safe” was ambiguous or required qualification, even in 2002.
Handwritten annotations on a print-out of the email, believed to be from Powell’s office, reveal internal scepticism about the meeting. One note reads: “do you want to do this… Because you wanted to see Clinton by yourself… I know very little more about him,” indicating clear reservations within Downing Street.
The Meeting is Set
The lobbying was successful. The National Archives also released the subsequent briefing memo, marked “R” for Restricted, written by senior civil servant Matthew Rycroft for the Prime Minister ahead of the meeting scheduled for 17:00 GMT on 14 May 2002.
The memo, sent to Blair, Powell, and another adviser, briefs the Prime Minister that Epstein is “a financial adviser to the super-rich,” “a friend of Bill Clinton and Peter Mandelson,” and crucially, that he is “very rich and close to the Duke of York.”
It confirms the narrative pushed by Mandelson, stating: “Peter says that Epstein now travels with Clinton and Clinton wants you to meet him.”
The meeting took place as scheduled. A spokesperson for Sir Tony Blair has previously stated the Prime Minister met Epstein for “less than 30 minutes” and “never met or engaged with him subsequently,” emphasising it was “long before his crimes were known.” PM: I would never have appointed Mandelson had I known full Epstein links.
Epstein was convicted in Florida in 2008 for soliciting prostitution from a minor. He died in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges.(No 10 questioned Mandelson on Epstein links before appointment)
The release of these documents, detailing the direct lobbying and the use of the enigmatic term “safe,” intensifies the scrutiny on how Epstein cultivated his powerful network and the ease with which influential figures vouched for him, opening doors that have remained officially closed for decades.
Starmer Axes Mandelson in Epstein Storm, Admits “I Would Never Have Appointed Him
PM’s judgment under fire as leaked emails reveal depth of Mandelson’s support for convicted sex offender, triggering a second major resignation and a government in crisis.
Sir Keir Starmer has publicly declared he would “never” have appointed Peter Mandelson as his US ambassador had he known the full extent of the peer’s supportive relationship with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, as a scandal over his judgment rocks the fledgling Labour government.
The Prime Minister’s stark admission comes after he was forced to sack Lord Mandelson just one day after offering him public backing in the House of Commons, a dramatic U-turn triggered by the revelation of emails showing the Labour peer actively consoling Epstein and questioning his conviction.
The crisis, exploding so soon after the resignation of Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, has exposed deep fissures within the governing party, encouraged vocal frustration from backbench MPs, and been compounded by the resignation of a senior Downing Street aide in a separate controversy.
“A Relationship Far Different”: The Damning Emails
The catalyst for Lord Mandelson’s dismissal was a cache of emails from 2008, reported by Bloomberg, which revealed a personal and supportive correspondence with Epstein after the financier had pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from a minor.
The messages contained passages where Lord Mandelson encouraged Epstein to “fight for early release” shortly before he was sentenced to 18 months in a Florida prison. In perhaps the most damning line, he told the convicted sex offender, “I think the world of you,” the day before he began his sentence.
Speaking to reporters, Sir Keir said these messages showed Mandelson “was not only questioning but wanting to challenge the conviction of Epstein at the time.” He stated this attitude “cut across the whole approach that I’ve taken on violence against women and girls for many years and this government’s.”
Crucially, the Prime Minister admitted the emails revealed “the nature and extent of the relationship that Peter Mandelson had with Epstein was far different to what I had understood to be the position when I appointed him.”
A Prime Minister on the Ropes
Sir Keir’s judgment is now under intense scrutiny. He faces uncomfortable questions about why a proper due diligence process failed to uncover these emails, given that Lord Mandelson’s friendship with Epstein was a matter of public record.
The Prime Minister insisted he was “not at all” satisfied with Lord Mandelson’s responses to official questions about the relationship. He also sought to explain his rapid reversal, stating that while he knew Foreign Office officials had queried the emails when he defended Mandelson at PMQs, he did not know their specific, damning content.
His attempt to draw a line under the affair has been undermined by its rapid escalation. The Conservative opposition has been granted an emergency debate on the appointment for Tuesday, ensuring the scandal will dominate Parliament next week.
A Government Reeling from Twin Blows
The Mandelson debacle has acted as a lightning rod for broader discontent within the Labour Party. Emboldened by the government’s shaky start, some MPs are becoming increasingly vocal about their frustrations with Sir Keir’s leadership and the competence of the Downing Street operation.
This simmering crisis was dealt a further blow on Monday with the resignation of Paul Ovenden, a senior aide to Sir Keir, after the leak of explicit messages he sent about veteran MP Diane Abbott from eight years ago. The twin resignations of a high-profile ambassador and a key Downing Street staffer within days have left the new government looking besieged.
For Sir Keir Starmer, who built his leadership on a promise of integrity and competence, the Epstein emails have not only cost him an ambassador but have exposed a fatal flaw in his government’s vetting process and ignited a firestorm that threatens to consume his premiership before it has truly begun.
Sir Keir Starmer’s authority is under sustained assault from all sides as a parliamentary debate on the Peter Mandelson scandal threatens to derail his agenda and ignite a full-blown leadership crisis, The Guardian can reveal.
Downing Street’s efforts to draw a line under the affair have collapsed, with the Prime Minister now facing a coordinated triple threat: an emergency Commons debate demanded by the Conservatives, a formal investigation by Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, and increasingly open rebellion from his own backbenchers.
The timing could not be more perilous for Sir Keir, with the firestorm erupting just days before a high-stakes state visit by US President Donald Trump and weeks ahead of the Labour conference, where he hoped to unite the party and set out his vision for government.
A Party in Open Revolt
The facade of party unity has shattered. In a sign of the deep frustration coursing through Labour ranks, backbencher Richard Burgon issued a stark public warning, telling BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that Sir Keir would be “gone” if May’s upcoming elections in Scotland, Wales, and across English councils deliver a poor result for the party.
This public declaration of unrest is compounded by a formal challenge from within Sir Keir’s own top team. The Foreign Affairs Committee, chaired by Labour MP and former shadow cabinet minister Dame Emily Thornberry, has taken the highly unusual step of demanding the government provide evidence and answer for how Lord Mandelson was vetted and cleared for the sensitive role of US ambassador.
The Conservative Onslaught
Seizing on the government’s vulnerability, the Conservative Party has secured an emergency debate scheduled for Tuesday, ensuring the scandal will dominate the political agenda and force Labour MPs to publicly defend their leader’s judgment.
In a letter to the Prime Minister, Tory MP Alex Burghart went straight for the most damaging question: what did Sir Keir know about the depth of Mandelson’s friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, and when did he know it? The letter explicitly questions the timeline, asking why Sir Keir offered a full-throated defence of Lord Mandelson at Prime Minister’s Questions last Wednesday, only to sack him the following day.
The demand for the release of all documents relating to the appointment is a direct challenge to Sir Keir’s claim of transparency and rigorous due diligence.
A Premiership on the Precipice
The confluence of events presents the gravest threat yet to Sir Keir Starmer’s premiership. The Mandelson scandal is no longer a simple question of a misplaced appointment; it has become a litmus test for his leadership, judgment, and control over the Labour Party.
With President Trump’s visit requiring a display of strength and stability, and the party conference meant to be a showcase of Labour’s vision, the Prime Minister instead finds himself fighting for his political life. The parliamentary debate on Tuesday is no longer just about an ambassador; it is a referendum on Sir Keir Starmer himself, and his party’s patience is wearing dangerously thin.
- gawcam