Keir Starmer

Keir Starmer is the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and a former Director of Public Prosecutions, who led the Crown Prosecution Service from 2008 to 2013. Starmer himself is not among the individuals named in the released Epstein files. His documented relevance to the Epstein matter is indirect: it concerns his decision as Prime Minister to appoint Peter Mandelson — a man with extensively documented ties to Jeffrey Epstein — as the UK’s Ambassador to the United States, and the political fallout that followed when those ties became public.

The Mandelson Appointment

Starmer and then-Foreign Secretary David Lammy announced Mandelson’s appointment as British Ambassador to the United States in December 2024. Starmer dismissed him on 11 September 2025, after the publication of emails showing that Mandelson had encouraged Epstein to “fight for early release” from his 2008 conviction. Starmer described Mandelson’s communications to the convicted sex offender as “reprehensible.” Starmer later told the House of Commons, “had I known it at the time, I wouldn’t have appointed him.”

The Vetting Controversy

Mandelson had been denied security clearance by UK Security Vetting on 28 January 2025, yet was confirmed as ambassador two days later — a sequence that became public when it was revealed on 16 April 2026. Starmer said he was not informed of the failed vetting, while acknowledging that “at the heart of this is also a judgment I made that was wrong” and that he “should not have appointed Peter Mandelson.” In the aftermath, the government dismissed Olly Robbins, the most senior civil servant in the Foreign Office; Robbins said he had been placed under “serious pressure” to approve the appointment. Starmer has resisted opposition calls to resign over the affair.

The May 2026 Local Elections

The Mandelson affair left Starmer badly weakened heading into local elections on May 6, 2026. Labour was routed, losing more than 1,100 of the council seats it had been defending, while the right-wing populist Reform UK gained more than 1,400 and the Greens captured London councils that had long been Labour strongholds. Some Labour MPs called on Starmer to resign — “The Prime Minister needs to go. That is not negotiable,” said Norwich South MP Clive Lewis — but the prime minister refused, calling the results “really tough” while insisting he would not “walk away” and “plunge the country into chaos.” Reporting on the vote cited the backlash over his appointment of an Epstein-linked ambassador among the factors that had eroded his standing, alongside broader economic discontent.

Is Keir Starmer in the Epstein files?

Based on the sources opened and read for this profile, there is no indication that Keir Starmer is himself named in the Epstein files; he does not appear among the individuals documented in the released materials. Starmer’s connection to the matter is political rather than personal: it stems from his appointment of Peter Mandelson as ambassador, his subsequent dismissal of Mandelson once the Epstein emails surfaced, and the controversy over the security-vetting process that preceded the appointment. Being associated with these events is not evidence of any wrongdoing by Starmer in relation to Epstein.