UK: Mandelson quits Labour after new claims about Epstein ties
Former U.K. Ambassador to the U.S. Peter Mandelson said Sunday he had resigned his membership of the Labour Party to avoid causing “further embarrassment” over his friendship with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Mandelson’s decision to quit the party came after new documents released by the U.S. Department of Justice on Friday appeared to show that Epstein made payments amounting to $75,000 to accounts linked to the Labour peer between 2003 and 2004.
Mandelson, who was a Labour MP at that time, said he had no record or recollection of receiving the alleged payments from Epstein and did not know if the documents were authentic.
“I have been further linked this weekend to the understandable furore surrounding Jeffrey Epstein and I feel regretful and sorry about this,” Mandelson said in a letter to Labour’s General Secretary Hollie Ridley, according to a statement released to the media Sunday.
https://www.politico.eu/article/peter-mandelson-quits-labour-jeffrey-epstein-documents-payments-allegations/