The Metropolitan Police said Monday it is reviewing allegations of misconduct in a public office.
Starmer’s spokesperson said the Epstein file documents “contain likely market sensitive information surrounding the 2008 financial crash and official activities thereafter to stabilize the economy.”
“Only people operating in an official capacity had access to this information, [with] strict handling conditions to ensure it was not available to anyone who could potentially benefit from it financially,” the spokesperson said, adding: “It appears these safeguards were compromised.”
Mandelson, a former Labour Cabinet minister who twice had to resign from Tony Blair’s government, was given a seat in the House of Lords by Gordon Brown in 2008 — a move which allowed Brown to appoint him as business secretary.
More recently, the peer was made U.S. ambassador by Starmer as he sought to build strong ties with Donald Trump’s administration. The British prime minister sacked Mandelson last year after the release of U.S. Department of Justice files which shed new light on Mandelson’s friendship with Epstein.
The former ambassador quit the ruling Labour Party on Friday — but Starmer is under mounting political pressure to go further.