UK leader Starmer averts a leadership challenge for now but remains damaged by Epstein fallout

LONDON — Keir Starmer fights another day.

After indirect fallout from the Jeffrey Epstein files sparked a dramatic day of crisis that threatened to topple him, the U.K. prime minister was saved by a pugnacious fightback and hesitation among his rivals inside the governing Labour Party about the consequences of a leadership coup.

Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said Tuesday that Labour lawmakers had ''looked over the precipice … and they didn't like what they saw.''

''And they thought the right thing was to unite behind Keir,'' Miliband told the BBC.

He might have added: For now.

Mandelson blowback

Starmer's authority over his center-left party has been battered by aftershocks from the publication of files related to Epstein — a man he never met and whose sexual misconduct hasn't implicated him.

Starmer has apologized, saying Mandelson had lied about the extent of his ties to the convicted sex offender. And he vowed to fight for his job.

''I will never walk away from the mandate I was given to change this country,'' Starmer said Tuesday as he visited a community center in southern England. ''I will never walk away from the people that I'm charged with fighting for and I will never walk away from the country that I love.''

Starmer's risky decision to appoint Mandelson — who brought extensive contacts and trade expertise but a history of questionable ethical judgment — backfired when emails were published in September showing that Mandelson had maintained a friendship with Epstein after the financier's 2008 conviction for sex offenses involving a minor.

Starmer fired Mandelson, but a new trove of Epstein files released last month by the U.S. government contained more revelations. Mandelson is now facing a police investigation for potential misconduct in public office over documents suggesting that he passed sensitive government information to Epstein. He's not accused of any sexual offenses.

Simmering discontent

Some of Starmer's problems stem from a turbulent world and a gloomy economic backdrop. He has won praise for rallying international support for Ukraine and persuading U.S. President Donald Trump to sign a trade deal easing tariffs on U.K. goods. But at home, he has struggled to bring down inflation, boost economic growth and ease the cost of living.

Despite a huge parliamentary majority that should allow the government to implement its plans with ease, Starmer has been forced to make multiple U-turns on contentious policies including welfare cuts and mandatory digital ID cards.

Starmer has been through two chiefs of staff, four directors of communications and multiple lower-level staff changes in Downing Street. The prime minister's powerful chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, resigned Sunday over the decision to appoint Mandelson. Communications director Tim Allan left the next day.

Allan's predecessor, Matthew Doyle, has since been appointed by Starmer to the House of Lords, but said Tuesday he would not be sitting as a Labour member over his association with Sean Morton, a former Labour councilor who was convicted in 2017 of possessing indecent images of children. Doyle condemned Morton's crimes and apologized for campaigning for him in an election before his conviction, saying that was ''a clear error of judgment for which I apologize unreservedly.'' He said he had believed Morton's claim of innocence at the time.

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar held a news conference on Monday and called for Starmer to resign. If other senior party figures had followed, the pressure would have been impossible for Starmer to resist.

Then, came a highly charged meeting with Labour members of Parliament, where Starmer impressed many with his sense of resolve. Lawmakers in the room said that the mood, initially skeptical, became supportive.

''It was clear he was up for the fight,'' said Chris Curtis, one of more than 200 Labour lawmakers elected in the 2024 Starmer landslide.

Temporary reprieve

Starmer appears to have more political lives than Larry the cat, who has outlasted five prime ministers during 15 years as ''chief mouser'' in Downing Street.

But his respite is likely to be temporary. Many Labour lawmakers remain worried about their reelection chances if the party's dire opinion poll ratings don't improve.

''That failure must be acknowledged and confronted honestly,'' she said, while offering support for Starmer.

Labour faces potential electoral setbacks at a Feb. 26 special election in what was once a party stronghold in northwest England, and in May's elections for legislatures in Scotland and Wales and local councils in England.

And rivals are still plotting. The Guardian reported that an ''Angela for leader'' website backing Rayner briefly went live last month by accident. Streeting, whose genial relationship with Mandelson is now a weakness, released messages he'd exchanged with Mandelson before and after the ambassadorial appointment, seemingly in an attempt to show the men weren't close friends.

The exchanges include implicit criticism of Starmer, with Streeting writing that the government had ''No growth strategy at all.''

Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, said that Starmer had ''bought himself some time'' and challengers were ''keeping their powder dry'' for the moment.

Though in British politics, nothing is impossible.