Starmer-Mandelson latest: Morgan McSweeney resigns as PM’s chief of staff over US ambassador scandal

Your Party members have voted to stand in the 2026 Holyrood election, with the party’s co-founder Zarah Sultana saying Scotland deserves better than “a politics that wears the veneer of progressivism”.

The vote took place during the founding conference of Your Party Scotland in Dundee, with 69.8 per cent of the party’s members backing the move.

The process for selecting candidates and developing policy is now expected to begin as early as next week.

he Coventry South MP said: “While this Westminster Government oppresses people abroad, it punishes people in Scotland too, across the NHS, local government, schools and community services, people feel the strain.

“Budgets tighten, expectations for managed decline is presented as realism.

“And what’s striking is how often that settlement is backed by parties who claim to be progressive, a political class that is managing cuts and scarcity instead of fighting for transformation.

“Scottish people deserve better than a politics that wears the veneer of progressivism while still pushing through cuts that decimate our communities, and that’s what you get with the SNP and the Greens.”

“In fact, you deserve better than that, and Your Party exists to oppose cuts, and I’m glad that you have voted to put candidates on a no-cuts platform, because that is the socialist position.”

Earlier Jeremy Corbyn addressed the founding conference of Your Party Scotland in Dundee, and said if the people of Scotland want to hold an independence referendum, “that is their choice.”

Mr Corbyn, who currently sits in Westminster as an independent MP, said: “As far as I’m concerned, I’ve always had the position that if the people in Scotland and the Scottish organisations want a referendum to decide the future of Scotland, that is their choice.

“It should not be determined by the UK Government in Westminster, and I think we have to make that very, very clear indeed.”

Labour peer, Ayesha Hazarika said there is “no doubt that the prime minister is wracked with upset and frustration and regret this weekend as this story is blowing up”, she told Sky New’s Trevor Phillips’ panel this morning.

But she added: “This has been an absolutely shameful week for the Labour Party, particularly a party which has always prided itself on wanting to stand up for women and girls.

“I have never known rage and fury and devastation particularly from female MPs, peers, councillors, party members as I have over this last week.”

More broadly, Hazarika said this is “a story about male power and a boys club”, and said the Epstein files showed “who runs the world, who has unfettered power, and how these men connect with each other, how they do transactions with each other and how they think they can act with impunity, whether it’s the procuring of underage girls, whether it’s leaking kind of secret information about state secrets to each other”.

She asked why there was “not more curiosity of mind” when it came to Peter Mandelson, and questioned why he was considered the best person for the job.

Hazarika continued: “Everybody knew that Peter Mandelson swam in these circles, that he mixed around with these big guys – he was seduced by wealth, and power, and men with yachts, and all the culture that goes with that.

“That is why he was given the job, because the calculation was: ‘these are the slightly tawdry circles in which the US president moves, and we need a guy that swims in these pools, sits in these hot tubs, if you like, with these big guys – they can do business together’.

“And that transactional thought was put over the victims.”

She added that Labour has to ask “some very reflective, soul-searching questions” about why it has been “so seduced” by Mandelson over so many decades.

Reacting to Morgan McSweeney’s departure as Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, Labour MP for York Central Rachael Maskell told the Press Association: “It is a start, but we need to know how decisions have been made in the Labour Party, including the role of Peter Mandelson and Morgan McSweeney’s ‘kitchen cabinet’, and how this whole culture will turn away from the factionalism to an inclusive culture which seeks to listen and engage MPs and prevent future errors over policy.”

It has been reported that Mr McSweeney convened a “kitchen cabinet” of Labour figures, including Lord Mandelson, for dinners at the house of Labour grandee Lord Liddle when the party was in opposition.

Vidhya Alakeson and Jill Cuthbertson, who were Morgan McSweeney’s deputies, have been appointed Sir Keir Starmer’s joint acting chiefs of staff following Mr McSweeney departure.

Ms Alakeson has responsibility for policy and delivery and has managed Downing Street’s external relationships.

Before Labour entered office, she forged ties with the business community as the party’s director of external relations.

The former Resolution Foundation think tank deputy chief executive served in the No 10 strategy unit and in the Treasury during the last Labour government.

Ms Cuthbertson has managed the prime minister’s diary and has been described as the ultimate gatekeeper to Sir Keir.

She ran his office when he was leader of the opposition, having previously held similar roles for former Labour leaders Ed Miliband and Gordon Brown.

Keir Starmer’s position as prime minister is “untenable” after the Mandelson “disaster” a senior Tory has said.

Alex Burghart, the Conservative Party’s shadow Cabinet Office chief, told Trevor Phillips on Sky News’s Sunday Morning programme that this whole affair is “about the prime minister’s judgement” and is “very serious”.

Mr Burghart said: “The most dramatic piece of evidence” against the prime minister himself this week in the Mandelson affair, which was his admission at Prime Minister’s Questions that “he knew that Peter Mandelson had an ongoing relationship with the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein when he appointed him to be ambassador in Washington”.

“This obviously throws the prime minister’s judgement into the most serious question, to the point where it’s clear that a lot of people in his party no longer trust him,” he said.

“The prime minister must ultimately take responsibility for this because, at the moment, he’s refusing to do so,” he continued.

Burghart also described Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador to the US as a “disaster”.

The prime minister has asked Jill Cuthbertson and Vidhya Alakeson to be acting chiefs of staff, with immediate effect, The Guardian has reported.

Both have served as deputy chiefs of staff since 2024.

Labour MP Gordon McKee has posted a lengthy defence of Morgan McSweeney on social media, saying the ex-chief of staff was “not alone” in his mistakes.

“As a member of staff he doesn’t get to rebut the nonsense that is said about him,” Mr McKee wrote. “I have known him personally for six years, and he is one of the most decent people that I’ve ever met in politics. He is thoughtful, kind and extremely clever.”

He went on to say Mr McSweeney would be “appalled” by the revelations about Peter Mandelson and thinking of the victims of Epstein’s horrific crimes.

Previously, when the Epstein revelations came to light, Mandelson said: “I was wrong to believe Epstein following his conviction [in 2008 for procuring a child for prostitution and of soliciting a prostitute] and to continue my association with him afterwards. I apologise unequivocally for doing so to the women and girls who suffered.”

And in an interview with The Times, Lord Mandelson referred to a “handful of misguided historical emails, which I deeply regret sending”.

Sir Keir Starmer hopes to provide an update as soon as Monday on how the government is addressing the issues highlighted by the Lord Mandelson scandal, the Press Association understands.

The prime minister and Morgan McSweeney had decided it was the right time to move on, but the government’s policy agenda and commitment to its economic strategy has not changed, it is understood.

Plaid Cymru’s Westminster leader has said Morgan McSweeney’s resignation “won’t save Keir Starmer”.

Posting on X, Liz Saville Roberts said: “Morgan McSweeney’s resignation won’t save Keir Starmer. Making a sacrificial lamb of his chief of staff cannot erase the Prime Minister’s own failure of judgement in appointing Peter Mandelson as US ambassador.

“Responsibility rests with the PM.”