LONDON, February 23. /TASS/. Former UK ambassador to the US Peter Mandelson has been arrested on suspicion of sharing confidential information with convicted US financier Jeffrey Epstein, Sky News reported.
London’s Metropolitan Police has actually confirmed his arrest, although not mentioning his name in its press release as no charges have been brought against hi as of yet. It only said that a 72-year-old man was detained on "suspicion of misconduct in public office" at his home in the London Borough of Camden and taken to a police station for interrogation.
Mandelson was appointed to the post in February 2025. He was removed from the post in September, after new information on his ties with Epstein emerged. For quite a long time, he was reputed as an influential Labour figure. He was a member of the UK House of Commons in 1992-2004 and the minister of state for Northern Ireland in the Tony Blair government in 199-2001. After that, he served as European commissioner for trade (2004-2008) and as the secretary of state for business and trade in the Gordon Brown government in 2008-2010. In 2008, he became member of the House of Lords.
The UK media, upon examining the Epstein files, said that in 2009, Mandelson leaked to Epstein confidential information about the Labor Party’s tax reform, and passed to him information about the planned EU bailout for southern European countries, which were the hardest hit by the global financial crisis. On February 6, 2026, police searched two houses owned by Mandelson. On February 8, UK Prime Minister's chief of staff Morgan McSweeney resigned amid public anger over Mandelson’s appointment to the post of the UK ambassador to the US. After that, rumors that UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer may soon lose his post, because he was the one to approve Mandelson’s appointment, have started to actively circulate in the British media. - However, Starmer managed to secure his party’s support and retain his post.