Mandelson ‘betrayed’ his country, Gordon Brown tells BBC

11 minutes agoAnna Lamche

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Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown has told the BBC he believes Peter Mandelson “betrayed” his country by leaking sensitive financial information to financier and convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein as the UK dealt with the fallout of the 2008 financial crash.

Email exchanges released in the latest Epstein files suggest Mandelson, who was then business secretary, gave Epstein almost minute-by-minute updates in the days following the 2010 general election, when Labour lost its majority.

His remarks come as police concluded a search of two homes linked to Mandelson following the release of the latest Epstein files.

Mandelson has not responded to the BBC’s request for comment.

The BBC understands his position is that he has not acted in any way criminally and that he was not motivated by financial gain.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4, Brown said Mandelson’s communications with Epstein “meant Britain was at risk because of that, the currency was at risk, some of the trading that would happen would be speculative as a result of that and there’s no doubt that huge commercial damage could have been done and perhaps was done”.

Brown said he felt “shocked, sad, angry, betrayed, let down” by the messages.

He said they indicate Lord Mandelson was planning for a career outside government while he was business secretary during the response to the global financial crisis.

“The emails show that. They show that he was talking about writing a book while he was supposed to be a government minister. He was talking about how he would get a job after the government was over and talking about what banks would employ him.

“All these things were happening at one and the same time, so it was a complete betrayal of his colleagues and of the job that he was carrying out and, of course, it was a betrayal of the country.”

United States District Court Southern District of New York

Brown called for Mandelson and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, who also appeared in photographs in the recent Epstein file release, to “give… information to the authorities” investigating Epstein’s crimes.

“We’re dealing with a global network of very powerful people who believed that they could break the law, they believed they could do anything because nobody would prosecute them”, he said.

Brown renewed his calls for “comprehensive” reform of the British political system.

He said the government needed to introduce an “anti-corruption commission” with “powers to seize assets”, among a raft of other measures to clear up public life.

Brown said the government needed to act quickly to bring in the recommendations relating to standards in public life that he laid out in his report “A New Britain: Renewing our Democracy and Rebuilding our Economy”.

He suggested there should be US-style confirmation hearings for new government ministers and senior appointments.

He said the alleged lies told by Lord Mandelson during his appointment process as US ambassador were “not sufficient explanation for what happened”.

“There is a systemic failure to do proper vetting, to go through the proper procedures and to actually have, in my view, what should be public hearings for anybody who is going to be in a senior position representing the British government.”

He added a new ethics commission should be given statutory powers to check the bank accounts of people being appointed to senior government positions.

He added there needed to be a crackdown on “the systematic abuse of power by lobbyists” and said there should be a ban on MP’s second jobs except in the case of doctors.

Asked if Sir Keir was the right man to take the country forward, he said: “I can look in his eyes and I can see that he is a man of integrity. He wants to do the right things.

“Perhaps he’s been too slow to do the right things, but he must do the right things now, and let’s judge what he does, on what happens in the next few months when he tries to, and I believe (he) will try, to clean up the system.”

On Saturday, the Metropolitan police said it had concluded a search linked to Peter Mandelson in Wiltshire and north London following allegations of misconduct in public office.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Hayley Sewart, of the Metropolitan Police, said: “I can confirm that officers from the Met’s Central Specialist Crime team have carried out searches at two addresses, one in the Wiltshire area, and another in the Camden area. The searches were related to an ongoing investigation into misconduct in public office offences, involving a 72-year-old man.

“He has not been arrested and enquiries are ongoing. This will be a complex investigation requiring a significant amount of further evidence gathering and analysis. It will take some time to do this work comprehensively and we will not be providing a running commentary.”