Starmer is not in Epstein files, Trump is. Here’s why UK leader almost lost his chair, while US President gets support

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Tuesday (February 9) said he would “never walk away from the mandate I was given to change this country”, after he narrowly survived demands of resignation over his US ambassador pick’s ties with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The ambassador, Peter Mandelson, was sacked in September, but the US Department of Justice last month released Epstein’s private correspondences, which revealed that his association with Mandelson was closer than earlier known. Starmer was thus under fire for poor judgement in choosing his ambassador. His chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, had to step down on February 8. Why has a scandal across the Atlantic caused such outrage in the UK as to threaten the PM’s position, when in the US, President Donald Trump, who personally knew Epstein, is facing no such danger? The answer lies in the nature of British polity, Starmer and Mandelson’s reputations, and in the American political landscape. A crisis of institutional vetting As Walter Bagehot put it in his book The English Constitution (1867), the seat of the UK Prime Minister is the designated “efficient” engine of the state, distinct from the “dignified” but symbolic monarchy. While the public has historically perceived royal indiscretions, such as the exiled Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s ties to Epstein, as a “legacy glitch”—a failure of character in a thousand-year-old system—the Starmer government is the primary operating system the nation rests upon. Subsequently, any scenario where that system fails or its validity is brought into question graduates from being a mere scandal into a national crash. ## The Peter Mandelson saga Mandelson, 72, is no stranger to controversies. His long-time role as background fixer has earned him the nickname ‘Prince of Darkness’. His traits of building connections and making deals, along with his personal relations with key figures in Washington, made Starmer choose him as the ambassador to Trump’s America, despite an official vetting process flagging his links to Epstein, the PM told the House of Commons on February 4. In the latest Epstein files, while Mandelson is not implicated in sexual misconduct, he appears to have passed on confidential information to Epstein while holding important positions in the UK government. The UK’s Metropolitan Police has launched a criminal probe into “Misconduct in Public Office”. Allegations include: The €500bn Eurozone Leak: Mandelson told Epstein about a massive European bailout package hours before the official announcement during the 2008 financial crisis, allowing the American’s circle to front-run currency markets. The £20-bn Asset Sale Memo: A June 2009 confidential briefing detailing the UK’s plan to sell state-held land and assets was allegedly forwarded to Epstein, providing the private financier with the government’s “bottom line” on privatisation. The $75,000 transfers: Bank records from 2003–2004 show payments totalling $75,000 from Epstein-linked accounts to bank accounts associated with Mandelson and his husband, Reinaldo Avila da Silva. Thus, in the UK, the Epstein issue has an added dimension — that the country’s post-2008 economic recovery was exploited by a foreign actor for personal interests, as he had a direct line to the Business Secretary (Mandelson) and the royally appointed Trade Envoy (2001-2011) Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. ## The asymmetry of accountability: Starmer vs. Trump Despite this, the accountability expected from Starmer in the UK is much more than from Trump in the US. Trump has 38,000 direct mentions in the Epstein files. This can be explained by “the integrity paradox”, which says that the consequence for infractions by a political leader is directly proportionate to the extent to which they endorse a ‘high-integrity’ brand. Consequently, Trump’s historically pockmarked image coupled with the efforts of his aides to discredit both the authenticity and importance of the Epstein files has excused him from facing the same degree of pressure as Starmer. Operating in a “high-conflict” political ecosystem where transgression has been normalised, Trump’s Department of Justice, led by Attorney-General Pam Bondi, has successfully framed the files as a partisan “Deep State” attack, shielding him with a precedent of “scandal saturation.” In effect, Trump’s populist brand has decoupled his power from personal conduct. Keir Starmer, meanwhile, has to answer to the UK’s ‘high-trust’ ecosystem. His premiership was built on the sanctity of the Ministerial Code—a constitutional framework that, in the absence of a written constitution, relies on institutional shame as its primary enforcement mechanism. Thus, for the UK public, the prospect that the “adults in the room” in Downing Street were just as compromised by Epstein’s circles of money and power as the “royals in the palace” threatens the very social contract forged between the State and its citizens.