Lord Mandelson has refused to apologise to victims of Jeffrey Epstein for his friendship with the convicted paedophile and financier.
The former US ambassador and cabinet minister had described Epstein as his “best pal” in what he admitted were “toe curling” emails but claimed that he was “on the fringes” of the financier’s life.
Speaking in his first interview since getting sacked as the UK’s ambassador to the US on BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg show, the Labour Party grandee would only apologise for “a system” which let down the victims of Epstein.
He said: “I want to apologise to those women for a system that refused to hear their voices and did not give them the protection they were entitled to expect.”
Pressed on whether he would apologise for his friendship with Epstein after his conviction, Lord Mandelson said: “If I had known, if I was in any way complicit or culpable, of course I would apologise… but I was not culpable, I was not knowledgeable for what he was doing, and I regret, and will regret to my dying day, the fact that powerless women were not given the protection they were entitled to expect.”
He described his relationship with Epstein as “a terrible mistake” which “I will regret until my dying day.”
He went on: “I believed his story and that of his lawyer that he had been falsely criminalised in his contact with these young women. Now I wish I had not believed that story.”
In an awkward moment, he challenged Ms Kuenssberg over suggestions that he knew of allegations around Epstein.
“Do you really think that if I knew what was going on and what he was doing with and to these vulnerable young women, that I’d have just sat back and moved on and said, ‘Okay, that’s his that’s his life’? I’d have done that? Do you think I’d have written emails like that if I had any knowledge or suspicion of what he was doing?”
He said: “I can say this absolutely, I can say it to you categorically, I never saw anything in his life when I was with him, when I was in his hands, that would give me any reason to suspect what an evil monster this man was.”
The Labour peer also strongly implied that he disagreed with his sacking as ambassador to the US which was done because of emails and texts emerging with new information about his relationship with Epstein.
Asked if he deserved to be sacked, Lord Mandelson said: “I understand why I was sacked.”
He added: “The emails that were published came as a huge surprise and a huge shock to me, not just to them. They no longer existed on my server I have long since disused. I was unable to share emails with them that I didn’t recall.”
The interview was met with anger by the government with transport secretary Heidi Alexander saying that she thought that Mandelson should have apologised to the victims of Epstein.
She went on: “I think the breadth and the nature of the relationship that Peter Mandelson had with Jeffrey Epstein only became clear at the point at which those emails were published in September of last year, and that’s why the Prime Minister acted swiftly, took immediate action to remove him as the ambassador to the United States.”
SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn demanded that Mandelson lost his seat in the Lords.
He said: “Says he had no knowledge of what Epstein was doing when he maintained he friendship with his ‘best pal’. Yet knew that Epstein had been convicted of soliciting prostitution from a minor. Why are Labour continuing to allow this man to sit in the House of Lords?”
One veteran Labour MP was furious that the BBC had given Mandelson more publicity.
Former shadow chancellor John McDonnell said: “When Keir Starmer appointed Mandelson I said publicly it was a serious error of judgement. I’ve always been a supporter of the BBC in its role as a public broadcaster but the decision to invite Mandelson onto the Kuenssberg programme calls into question once more its own judgement.”
Ex-Labour adviser Baroness Ayesha Hazarika said: “Disappointed with the BBC for that Mandelson interview. A slap in the face to Epstein victims. He was part of the system of male power which enabled and dismissed abuse. The media went after Mandelson correctly in my view.”
Boris Johnson’s former adviser Lord Kempsell added: “In editorial terms – if a Conservative or right-winger had been forced to resign as US Ambassador over links to Epstein there is NO way they would be back on a prime political programme in three months for an interview largely not about that scandal. Only Mandelson can acheive that.”