Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

How odious an oligarch is this Lebedev chap?

Honestly not that bad compared to most of the oligarchs who've operated in London (Abramovich, Deripraska, Berezovsky etc).

His dad is the issue really - but he's not a top-tier oligarch. But he was also an early oligarch who did well in the 90s and has lost under Putin.

His dad was KGB economic attache to London in the 80s. He became an oligarch in the 90s, with interests in banking and Russian media - I think a lot of those businesses have since failed (or, more accurately, been allowed to fail and picked apart by other oligarchs). So he's not a billionaire or oligarch with control over any key sectors. But he is still spectacularly rich with properties all over Europe.  He's not, by any stretch of the imagination, an opponent of Putin but he actually did a lot of deals with Gorbachev - so they jointly bought Novaya Gazeta which is one of the more independent bits of the Russian media.

My assumption is he never really left the security services, made a lot of money in the 90s and was on the losing side in the 00s. But got the message from Berezovsky etc to not get political or oppose Putin and, probably, still keep the lines open with old KGB colleagues. He was close to Gorbachev and Yeltsin.

I have a bit more sympathy with Lord Lebedev (Evgeny Lebedev) than most. He grew up and was educated in Britain. He became a British citizen in 2010. It's an open secret he's gay. Basically all his money comes from his dad which is his Russian interest. From what I understand all his actual business interests have been in Western Europe (and he doesn't seem very good at business to be honest). He has media companies, luxury hotels, restaurants, invests in couture houses and some side projects/hobbies like a (very good) pub he co-owns with Ian McKellen. He used to do fund-raisers with Elton John for AIDS, with Anna Wintour and Vogue and that sort of thing. Lots of art collecting and sponsoring of exhibitions.

He also has a reputation for absolutely lavish hospitality - which could be very weird, as he'd pull on his dad's relationships. So he'd have sort of huge, wild costume parties where the guest of honour would be Mikhail Gorbachev or Boris Yeltsin. He's done fundraisers for the Raisa Gorbacheva Foundation too which I think is indicative of the political side him and his father were on. But again I can't help but suspect there's a KGB link to these in terms of getting leverage.

Edit: An example of the hospitality was the launch of the Raisa Gorbacheva Foundation - whee he rented Princess Diana's childhood home for a white tie "Russian Midsummer fantasia" themed party. One attendee remembered seeing Mikhael Gorbachev, Salman Rushdie, Orlando Bloom and Naomi Campbell dancing in a circle.

And on the gay point he is literally bearded and regularly used to have a celebrity "girlfriend" - so Private Eye nicknamed him "Two Beards".

[PRC]

It reads like a Mick Herron plot.

[Zanza]

6th anniversary of Brexit today. Still think it was a mistake.

[Tamas]

6th anniversary of Brexit today. Still think it was a mistake.

It's fine, we still have Trump's ass as an alternative.

[HisMajestyBOB]

At least you haven't Brexited twice. 

[Valmy]

6th anniversary of Brexit today. Still think it was a mistake.

An enormous mistake. Britain is now less strong and independent than it was before. It gave up tons of power for nothing. Everything the "fear mongers" predicted came true. Imagine that?

Take back control...what a delusional joke.

[HVC]

Did they even get to keep the passport colour they wanted?

[Sheilbh]

6th anniversary of Brexit today. Still think it was a mistake.

I would have preferred the vote to go the other way.

But I'm a politics nerd, especially around post-war British politics, and the thing I find so striking is just how much continuity there is over Europe from 1945 to now. It flips. So for the first 45 years the right was united around being pro-European (including some of the far-right), while it divided the left with the centre-left being pro-European and the left of the left being Eurosceptic (indeed it was the issue that split the Labour Party). Then it becomes something that divides the right with, broadly, the centre right being pro-European and the right of the right being Eurosceptic while the left consolidates into a united pro-European camp (or, arguably, the centre-left triumphs). Now the right are united on staying out and the left are more split over what to do (from full fat re-joiners to people who want to just move on).

So I don't think it's over. I don't see any sign that it's going to resolve one way or another any time soon. Had Remain won I think Britain's relationship with Europe would have exploded into another crisis at some point (I personally think covid would have triggered a crisi). It's frustrating as someone who basically thinks Europe is, in large part, a displacement activity within British politics - that it wasn't the cause of or solution to all of our problems - I wish it would settle so people and politics could focus on the things that are in their control and that they can fix which I think cause far more problems. But sadly I'm fairly fatalist now - in the first 40 years we had two failed attempts to join and one that succeeded, in the following forty years we had two referendums on leaving. I wouldn't be surprised if we have a couple of attempts to join (failed or not) in the next forty years.

Separately - quick update on that by-election. I think odds on the Greens will win now. They've picked a fantastic candidate - very winning, local councillor. She's a plumber training to be a plasterer right now. George Galloway's Workers Party won't stand and there's no Gaza independent running so I think the Greens will consolidate the left-wing vote (which demographically is large in this seat - it's a really interesting constituency, bit of a Frankenstein's monster at the last boundary review).

Reform meanwhile have chosen an academic who is internet famous which I think is a huge mistake. I think this is a problem with some of the hard-right around the world right now. About ten years ago the left was far, far too online and mistook what they were seeing on Twitter for the real world - I think the opposite is currently happening to the hard right. There's a possibility they'll still come second but might well come third. Incidentally if Labour come third behind the Greens and Reform it will be a crisis - but it might well happen. It's been interesting as both of those parties have overtaken Labour in terms of membership and they seem to be using that now (and acting like traditional mass membership parties) and flooding the constituency with activists for canvassing etc.

[Sheilbh]

Also separately but wanted to put in a different post becaus it's big. Today's been a bad day for Labour scandals it's fair to say. First a Labour MP and the Labour Metro-Mayor for the South-West has been re-arrested on suspicion of rape, sexual assault, voyeurism and upskirting. He has already been arrested on suspicion of rape, child sexual offences, child abduction and misconduct in a public office - he was suspended from the Labour party at this point - this led to him being banned from Parliament and from the HQ of the West of England Combined Authority.

Then Tulip Siddiq, the former anti-corruption minister and niece of Sheikh Hasina, the deposed dictator/"illiberal democrat" PM of Bangladesh, has been jailed for four years for corruption in absentia in Bangladesh.

And, finally, more details about Peter Mandelson - from what I can see commiting straight-up insider trading/market abuse and behaving absolutely disgracefully - in the latest Epstein dump. It's difficult to overstate how important Mandelson has been for a lot of people at the top of the Labour Party right now. But what makes this all the more astonishing is that in the New Year Mandelson had tried to do a bit of a re-launch with a big interview on the BBC, which went badly. But I can't mentally understand how he thought this wasn't going to come out:

Police review alleged misconduct by Peter Mandelson over Jeffrey Epstein
Lord Mandelson is accused of sending the disgraced financier a private email from an adviser to then-prime minister Gordon Brown

Patrick Maguire, Chief Political Commentator | Steven Swinford, Political Editor | Oliver Wright, Policy Editor
Monday February 02 2026, 7.27pm, The Times

The Metropolitan Police is reviewing allegations of misconduct in public office against Lord Mandelson after emails suggested he forwarded internal government information to Jeffrey Epstein.

Mandelson is accused of sending the disgraced financier a private email from an adviser to then-prime minister Gordon Brown, containing highly sensitive market information in 2009. Mandelson was serving as business secretary at the time.

In a statement issued on Monday, Metropolitan Police Commander Ella Marriott said: "We are aware of the further release of millions of court documents in relation to Jeffrey Epstein by the United States Department of Justice.

"Following this release and subsequent media reporting, the Met has received a number of reports relating to alleged misconduct in a public office.

"The reports will all be reviewed to determine if they meet the criminal threshold for investigation."

Nick Butler, who wrote the memo, said that it contained sensitive and confidential information on economic policy that would have allowed Epstein to enrich himself and should never have been shared with people outside government at the time.

"I had absolutely no idea that Peter was sending emails I had written to anyone outside of government," Butler told The Times.

"We — that is all the people included on this email and many others — worked on the basis of trust, which allowed us to float ideas. I am disgusted by the breach of trust, presumably intended to give Epstein the chance to make money."

He added: "I had no idea about Peter's link to Epstein at that time and would never have imagined that as a senior minister and first secretary of state he would do anything like this."

Butler, who was Brown's senior policy adviser, said Epstein was never mentioned by Mandelson in discussions with the prime minister's team.

Brown has urged the Cabinet Secretary to investigate the leak.

In a statement on Monday, he said: "I have today asked the Cabinet Secretary to investigate the disclosure of confidential and market sensitive information from the then Business Department during the global financial crisis.

"On September 10 last year, I wrote to the Cabinet Secretary to ask him to investigate the veracity of information contained in the Epstein papers about the sale of assets arising from the banking collapse and communications about them between Lord Mandelson and Mr Epstein.

"That enquiry led to a response on November 19 that no departmental record could be found of any information or communication from Lord Mandelson to Mr Epstein on these issues.

"Given the shocking new information that has come to light in the latest tranche of Epstein papers, including information about the transfer to Mr Epstein of at least one highly sensitive government document as well as other highly confidential information, I have now written to ask for a wider and more intensive enquiry to take place into the wholly unacceptable disclosure of government papers and information during the period when the country was battling the global financial crisis.

"Given the public interest in this, I have asked that the results of the enquiry be published and done so as soon as possible."

In June 2009 Mandelson appears to have sent Epstein what he described as an "interesting note" from Butler to Brown on "business issues".

The note, which begins "Dear Gordon", suggested that the government had "saleable assets" that could be sold off to the private sector to reduce debt. It added that this would enable the government to go into the next election with a pledge not to increase the top rate of income tax or corporation tax in the next parliament.

Butler wrote that he was looking at assets where there was "no good political or economic reason why they are in the public sector". "I know Jeremy has done some work on this," he wrote, referring to Jeremy Heywood, then the principal private secretary to the prime minister.

He wrote that selling £20 billion worth of assets would "relieve the debt burden, reduce borrowing costs and provide some funds for new investment". He wrote that it would enable the government to go into the next election with a pledge not to increase the top rate of income tax or corporation tax in the next parliament.

At the time Epstein had already been convicted of child sex offences and served time in jail. He made his money helping rich clients with investments and had close links with senior bankers for whom confidential information of potential government assets sales would have been valuable.

In the email chain, Epstein, a billionaire financier, asks "what saleable assets". Mandelson responds: "Land, property I guess".

The emails suggest that Mandelson was sending Epstein internal and privileged information about sensitive government discussions while serving in the cabinet. The files separately suggest that Epstein sent a total of $75,000 to Mandelson in 2003 and 2004. Mandelson said he had no record or recollection of the payments.

Mandelson also appears to have agreed to facilitate a tour of No 10 Downing Street and parliament for Epstein's teenage goddaughter.

The emails were sent on July 3, 2009, when Gordon Brown was prime minister and at a time when Epstein was in prison in Florida serving a 13-month sentence for the solicitation of a minor.

"The most important person to me (next to you of course) is my goddaughter that will be in london on wed and thurs of next week, what can we do to make it a very special trip, i would really appreciate it," Epstein wrote to Mandelson.

"How old?" Mandelson asked. Epstein told him she was 15. The goddaughter is Celina Dubin, the daughter of the hedge fund manager Glenn Dubin and Epstein's former girlfriend, the Swedish model Eva Andersson.

"Fine on all," Mandelson replies.

Tourists and non-UK residents generally cannot book public tours of the prime minister's private residence.

Mandelson has resigned from the Labour Party after new revelations about his relationship to Epstein were disclosed in the cache of emails.

Sir Keir Starmer has called for Mandelson to be stripped of his peerage as he announced a government investigation into the claims.

Downing Street said Starmer believed the former ambassador to the US "should not be a member of the House of Lords or use the title".

Government sources said Downing Street was looking at what action the Lords conduct committee could take but ruled out bringing in specific legislation, saying it would be complicated and time consuming.

Starmer urged the Lords to work with the government to modernise disciplinary procedures to make it easier to remove disgraced peers.

"The prime minister believes that Peter Mandelson should not be a member of the House of Lords or use the title," a spokesman said. "However, the prime minister does not have the power to remove it."

At the same time Chris Wormald, the cabinet secretary, has been tasked with urgently reviewing information on links between Lord Mandelson and Epstein while he was a government minister.

The Butler email, which was sent in the run-up to the 2010 general election, said that businesses were "probably now marginally anticipating a Tory victory" but added that there was "no evident enthusiasm". It said that there was "very noticeably no stream of endorsements of [David] Cameron by business leaders".

He talked about the importance of bringing forward private investment and said that Mandelson had been asked to come up with a plan to stop companies from "hoarding capital". "The challenge is to get that money moving," he said.

Butler suggested that the government should consider raising the capital allowance on new investment, a tax relief for businesses, to 75 per cent. Butler suggested that the government could avoid the need for further tax rises by "releasing value from the very substantial asset base which the government holds".

In August 2009 Epstein appears to have been sent another email discussing lending to businesses from Shriti Vadera, then the city minister. At the time, lending to UK businesses had collapsed after the financial crisis, hitting small and medium-sized companies the hardest.

Vadera appears to have written a memo in capital letters with a series of proposals for banks to increase their lending. Heywood and Mandelson were also seemingly sent the email.

It is not clear who forwarded the message to Epstein. However, it was sent on four seconds after Heywood apparently responded, describing the email as "really helpful".

The Vadera memo is highly critical of Mervyn King, then the governor of the Bank of England. "Mervyn King is off the page," it says. "He is winding people up about banks not lending with no evidence and has been destabilising the system by talking about banks needing more capital."

The memo is highly critical of the Treasury, accusing it of "whipping up the press", which only makes the government look more "impotent" and in doing so destroying business.

The memo said that the government needed to change its public position and make clear that banks were prepared to lend money. "We have found small pockets of unmet demand and banks are dealing with it," it said. The memo said someone that needed to have "a serious chat" with King and that the Treasury needed to "get serious" about the problem.

Mandelson did not respond to requests for comment.

It's worth noting there are a lot more Dan Neidle is doing a good job collating:
https://taxpolicy.org.uk/2026/02/02/mandelson-epstein-no10-documents-4m-job/

[Jacob]

My social feed popped up a picture of Mandelson in tighty-whities and a shirt talking to a teen/early 20s (hard to tell with the face blocked) woman in a bathrobe.

I did not need to see that

[Valmy]

I am rather jealous other countries are actually doing something against their leaders caught on these lists.

Over here they are going to get a Presidential Pardon and probably some kind of award.

We are rapidly being surpassed by the UK.

[Oexmelin]

How likely is the BBC to capitulate to Trump?

[Sheilbh]

My social feed popped up a picture of Mandelson in tighty-whities and a shirt talking to a teen/early 20s (hard to tell with the face blocked) woman in a bathrobe.

I did not need to see that

Apologies. He's a very important figure in British (especially Labour) politics but I imagine not well known elsewhere so it is possibly worth flagging that Mandelson is gay and there are no sexual allegations at this point (though Epstein did pay £10k for Mandelson's husband to do an osteopathy course).

I'd add two slight complications to that. One is that Mandelson has already used this as a defence saying that because he's gay, he thinks he was "shielded" from the seedy side of Epstein. I don't think that holds. The other is that I think he was possibly slightly protected by this at the time. The (gay) Times columnist and former Tory MP "outed" Mandelson on BBC Newsnight in the late 90s - I don't think it's quite right as it was known, he wasn't closeted and I think it had been mentioned in press coverage previously. There was a big row with the BBC (according to BBC people, Mandelson claims he was utterly unruffled and didn't do anything) and there were reports at the time that basically anything about Mandelson's private life became very sensitive and had to go to very senior levels at the BBC to be broadcast. Not sure it would have mattered much more in any event but just worth noting.

The police have opened an investigation and are now requesting unredacted documents from the DoJ. This is largely around leaking market sensitive information and misconduct in public office - which can carry a life sentence. Basically they'd need to show Mandelson deliberately leaked sensitive government information knowing it to be wrong or with reckless indifference, on the face of it, it looks pretty open and shut. Downing Street have apparenly handed over a file - and it has already emerged that Mandelson used a private email account to do government business when he was Business Secretary and the Cabinet Office do not have a record of those emails.

Beyond the leaking there's also the lobbying - via Dan Neidle who is going through all of this. To their credit the Treasury and Alistair Darling did not back down and went ahead with the policy Mandelson is trying to change here, but Mandelson was Business Secretary and Deputy PM at this point:

Dan Neidle
@DanNeidle
New Epstein emails show Peter Mandelson secretly advising JPMorgan's CEO on how to fight Labour's 2009 bankers' bonus tax - even suggesting he "mildly threaten" the Chancellor.

Mandelson was Business Secretary at the time.

A year later, he was seeking work with JPM.

On 9 December 2009, Alistair Darling - then the Chancellor of the Exchequer - announced a one-off 50% tax on bankers' bonuses.

On 15 December, Jeffrey Epstein asked Lord Mandelson if the tax could be amended so it applied only to cash bonuses (not the, much more valuable, non-cash elements such as share options).

Mandelson said that he was trying hard to amend the tax.



Then, on 17 December 2009, Mr Epstein asked Lord Mandelson if Jamie Dimon should call the Chancellor one more time.

Lord Mandelson responded that Jamie Dimon should "mildly threaten" Alistair Darling:


That may be linked to this reported call, of around the same time, from Mr Dimon to the Chancellor, which does appear to have involved a "mild threat" to significantly scale down its plans to build a new headquarters in the UK.

However, the Government did not back down.

After Labour lost power in 2010, Lord Mandelson founded lobbying/consultancy firm Global Counsel.

Subsequent email exchanges with Mr Epstein (and a phone call on Christmas Day) appear to show Lord Mandelson positioning for work and perhaps even a position with JPM:
[In May:]

[In December:]

Mandelson's response is "every UK and international bank was making the same argument about the impact on UK financial services. My conversations in government at the time reflected the views of the sector as a whole not a single individual." Which doesn't quite address a serving minister advising a foreign bank to mildly threaten the Chancellor.

[Sheilbh]

Feels like the scandal over Mandelson may force Starmer out fairly rapidly.

Rumours of ministers on the point of resignation and Labour MPs saying Starmer needs to fire his key aide (and very close ally of Mandelson) over this - which, given how close they are, very much has the vibes of Liz Truss firing her Chancellor.

I've mentioned it before but I think the most contemptible patterns with Starmer is his "the buck stops somewhere else" attitude. There's been many times in his premiership where Number 10 basically blames someone more junior than Starmer (an aide, a junior minister, someone else in the cabinet) who can't argue back. This is happening again. I've seen lots of briefing from Number 10 that apparently Starmer didn't actually really like or know Mandelson that well, most blatantly in the New Statesman: "Keir doesn't even like him, and never really has. He's not Keir's sort of person."

The best case is this is true and he's not fit to be PM because he basically just goes along with whatever people tell him, at worst he constantly lies and tries to blame people junior to him who can't answer back.

Part of the trigger for this is that at PMQs Starmer was forced to admit that he had been warned about Mandelson's ties to Epstein before appointing him as ambassador. The Tories are now using a parliamentary procedure to force Starmer to disclose documents relating to Mandelson's appointment as ambassador, including due diligence around him - I think it's very likely a lot of Labour MPs will back it. (Slight ironic note as the parliamentary procedure the Tories are using was basically an 18th and 19th century procedure that was re-invigorated by Starmer as Shadow Brexit Secretary - where he so valiantly triumphed - to the extent that the Tories tried unsuccessfully to limit its use.)

Edit: Again apologies for Twitter link but ITV last used BlueSky 8 months ago, but several people pointing to this moment in PMQs as when attitudes around Starmer hardened:
https://x.com/itvnews/status/2019029869280334078?s=46&t=o9GOIj6BKKcLcHiyQTlAoA

[Jacob]

Presumably if Starmer resigns, Labour has a leadership election and a new prime minister.

How long until the next general election in the UK?

Also - I think it was mentioned that Labour has a different mechanism for challenging leaders than the Tories. How can the Labour party force Starmer out? Or is it purely a "it's too embarrassing, so you better resign" kind of thing?