In 1964, Marxist historian Tom Nairn identified corrupt, half-hearted, mediocre leadership as one of the defining features of the British Labour Party. “It is doubtful, indeed,” he wrote, “if any other working-class movement has produced as many ‘traitors’—or at least as many unashamed, magnificently naked traitors—as has Labourism.”

Sixty-two years have passed since Nairn’s assessment. But he easily could have been referring to the current UK prime minister, Keir Starmer. Starmer is engulfed in a cataclysmic scandal entirely of his own making, involving the close ties between Peter Mandelson, a longtime Labour power broker and Starmer’s handpicked former ambassador to the United States, and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. And, in the manner of a desperate traitor on the verge of banishment, Starmer has sought to save himself by playing the part of an aggrieved faithful, insisting that Mandelson had lied to him about the depth of his relationship with Epstein.

“[Peter] Mandelson betrayed our country, our Parliament and my party,” he declared last week. “If I knew then what I know now, he would never have been anywhere near government.”

When first announcing Mandelson’s appointment to the prized diplomatic post, Starmer piled on the superlatives. “Peter will bring unrivalled experience to the role and take our partnership from strength to strength,” he crowed. This was despite the very publicly known fact that Mandelson had been a close friend, confidant, and co-conspirator of Epstein, including after Epstein’s 2008 conviction for child sex offenses.

Starmer’s decision to ignore these ties has now brought his already historically unpopular government to the edge of oblivion. He was first forced to fire Mandelson last fall, after the Justice Department released files showing Mandelson had privately decried Epstein’s conviction. Then, last week, a new cache of Epstein files provided confirmation that Mandelson had been with Epstein in the presence of young women; that he received $75,000 in financial gifts from Epstein; that Mandelson coordinated with Epstein to lobby against post-financial crisis banking regulation; and that he leaked market-sensitive, confidential government information to his friend while serving as the UK’s business secretary in 2009.

As the scandal escalated, Starmer threw multiple aides, including his chief of staff and closest adviser, Morgan McSweeney, overboard. Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar and other Labour MPs called for Starmer to step down. Mandelson, meanwhile, was finally forced to leave the House of Lords, the Privy Council, and the Labour Party itself. London’s Metropolitan Police have begun a criminal investigation into his government leaks.

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Throughout this, Starmer has attempted to portray himself as just another member of the betrayed public whom Mandelson deceived. But nobody believes this. When asked to directly address whether the security vetting related to Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador included information about his ongoing relationship with Epstein, Starmer’s protestations of ignorance collapsed. “Yes, it did,” he replied.

For now, Starmer is staggering on—mostly because the people angling to replace him want him to take the fall for what will surely be embarrassing results in late February’s MP by-election and May’s local elections. But the Mandelson crisis has left him hanging by a thread. More importantly, it has reinforced the problem that has always dogged Starmer in his nearly six years as Labour leader: that he is a total void, absent any commitment to human dignity, justice, or the truth. Anything, that is, except his own power. And now, just 18 months into government, Starmer’s end is finally in sight.

Starmer’s supporters generally defend him by saying that he is a well-intentioned, decent man who deserves the chance to right the ship. This absurd sentiment deliberately mystifies Starmer’s record of brutal and immoral actions while in power. His connection to Mandelson, both individually and ideologically, encapsulates the essential characteristics of his tenure.

It’s important to stress, for example, just how much was already publicly known about Mandelson and Epstein’s close relationship when Starmer appointed him as ambassador in December 2024.

A quick accounting includes the following: in 2019, the Daily Mail published a 2005 photo of Mandelson and Epstein shopping in the Caribbean; in 2022, the Sun published a 2007 photo of Mandelson celebrating Epstein’s birthday at the latter’s Paris apartment; and in 2023, the Financial Times reported that Mandelson stayed at Epstein’s Manhattan residence in 2009 while Epstein was in prison for soliciting sex with a child, and then continued to socialize with the pedophile in 2010 and 2011. Notably, the same 2023 FT report first revealed Mandelson’s 2010 collusion with Epstein and banker Jes Staley on opposing financial regulations—an issue that was roundly ignored until it reemerged in last week’s e-mail release. To make matters worse, Starmer was asked, on camera, about the FT’s Epstein-Mandelson reporting over a year before appointing Mandelson. (He brushed the question aside.)

There is only one possible conclusion to draw from this: Starmer knew about Mandelson’s very close relationship with a man who ran an international child trafficking, pedophilia, and influence ring, and was fine with it. As US ambassador, Mandelson provided Starmer with a Trump whisperer intimately connected to the president’s sordid social world, alongside convenient business ties to the tech companies in league with the American government. What could be a more effective way to strengthen the “special relationship” in this time of global uncertainty?

For Starmer, and particularly McSweeney (a longtime Mandelson acolyte who many believe was the real power behind the throne in No. 10), Mandelson was also far more than a diplomat. As a key architect of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown’s ruinous New Labour project of the late 1990s and the first decade of the 2000s, Mandelson was a bridge to this government’s only sense of political inspiration within the party’s history.

Just as New Labour eagerly subordinated the country to American interests and followed the US into illegal wars in the Balkans, Iraq, and Afghanistan, Starmer has thoroughly prostrated the UK to Washington and contributed arms, surveillance flights, and international cover to the US-backed Israeli genocide in Gaza. New Labour furthered neoliberal marketization in the public sector; Starmer signed a massive deal with OpenAI to use its products in education, defense, and the justice system, and has also accelerated the erosion of the National Health Service (NHS) by embracing private healthcare in place of public investment. Just as New Labour’s regime of deregulation welcomed business and finance to run havoc over working people’s lives, Starmer has gutted the Competition and Markets Authority regulator and installed the former head of Amazon UK as its chair to open up new ports of entry for invading tech companies.

On immigration and civil liberties, Starmer has distinguished himself by chasing after Nigel Farage’s far-right Reform UK party in a sadistic race to the bottom. From endless demonization of asylum seekers, inhumane restrictions on family reunion, and the introduction of extended timelines to legal settlement, the government’s Home Office has exclusively operated out of abject cruelty and racism. At the same time, Starmer has overseen an unprecedented expansion of the definition of terrorism to include nonviolent, anti-genocide protesters. He has ignored record-long hunger strikes by political prisoners fighting for basic rights and the end of UK complicity in mass death and destruction.

This has all come at a cost. As of January 2026, 75 percent of people in the UK have an unfavorable view of Starmer. Since 2020, when he became Labour leader, at least 200,000 people have left the party. Meanwhile, Farage’s Reform UK has surged in membership and is the early favorite to win the next general election.

In the same 1964 article, Nairn briefly considered whether socialists would be better off leaving the Labour Party, but stopped short of issuing a verdict. This shift is now happening. By cynically purging the Labour left in his rise to power and alienating any people of conscience who remained with the party’s response to genocide, Labour now faces an existential crisis as these former members regroup into new formations.

The Green Party, led by Zack Polanski, is the first to offer a credible electoral alternative on the left. Since Polanski’s election in the summer, the Greens have become the third-largest party in the country by membership, and have seen a significant rise in the polls. The upcoming elections—in which the Greens are expected to perform well—will be the first test of whether they really can replace Labour.

This is Starmer’s own doing. Whether he leaves this week, next week, or after the impending crisis in May, he finally is, as he should be, thoroughly disgraced. We will look back at his short reign with nothing but disgust.