Starmer ignored warnings from ministers on how to stop Mandelson rebellion
Keir Starmer (right) revealed that he knew about Peter Mandelson’s relationship with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein (Photo: Carl Court/PA)
Sir Keir Starmer’s No 10 and Labour whips ignored warnings as early as Tuesday evening that a Labour rebellion was brewing over the release of full vetting documents relating to Peter Mandelson’s appointment as the UK’s ambassador in the US.
Three government sources told The i Paper that it had not been former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner who initially led attempts to secure changes to how the papers would be published.
Instead, they credited behind the scenes lobbying from Cabinet minister Alan Campbell and Home Office minister Jess Phillips with trying to change minds in No 10 and save Starmer from a humiliating climbdown.
Downing Street had endeavoured to temper the Conservatives’ attempt to disclose the Mandelson paper trail by incorporating provisions for national security and the safeguarding of international relations.
However, MPs called the action a “cover-up” and advocated for Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), rather than the Cabinet Secretary, to decide on their disclosure.
LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND – JANUARY 25: Former Deputy Prime Minister of the Labour party, Angela Rayner, delivers a speech during Labour’s North West Regional Conference at the Titanic Hotel on January 25, 2026 in Liverpool, England. The 2026 regional conference serves as a key gathering for over 60 Labour-held seats in the North West and a significant portion of the party’s membership. Rayner addresses the Labour North West regional conference as a back bench MP after stepping down from her ministerial positions last year over tax irregularities. In her speech she encourages party members to “fight back for the soul of this country” from Nigel Farage and Reform UK at the local elections on May 7. (Photo by Ryan Jenkinson/Getty Images)
While Rayner was widely credited with leading the rebellion, the truth is more nuanced, a party source said (Photo: Ryan Jenkinson/Getty)
At Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) at noon on Wednesday, Starmer was still advocating for his plan but after the rebellion threatened to get out of hand, whips were forced to draft a last-minute amendment to appease MPs.
By Wednesday evening, his authority was in tatters.
“No 10 and the whips were warned on Tuesday that the ISC was the only viable option,” one of the Government sources said.
“Jess Phillips and Alan Campbell are the unsung heroes in all this. From Tuesday night, they were saying they had to go down the ISC route,” the second source said.
“Keir was still talking about not using the ISC at PMQs,” the source added. “There’s a constant pattern of this in No 10; arriving at the correct position far too late and then not getting the credit because they fought it all the way there.”
The third source confirmed that Campbell and Phillips had both been in No 10 on Wednesday morning and discussed the depth of unease among Labour backbenchers with Starmer’s officials.
Campbell spoke to Starmer himself. ISC Chairman Kevan Jones had also been consulted and was willing for his committee to come on board.
But even as he took PMQs at noon, Starmer had not heeded their advice. Tory Leader Kemi Badenoch urged Labour MPs to rebel and vote with her to include the ISC in overseeing the documents’ release.
After Starmer revealed that he knew about Mandelson’s relationship with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, Labour MPs retreated into Parliament’s tearoom in shock and fury.
The message – which had been relayed privately to No 10 – that they would not support the Government’s original motion, was now played out publicly on the floor of the Commons and social media.
While Rayner was widely credited with leading the rebellion, the truth is more nuanced, a party source said. “Maybe she did some tearoom rallying, but the work had been done,” the source said.
Rayner’s intervention was widely interpreted as a reminder that she has leadership intentions of her own, while she seeks to settle her outstanding tax payments with HMRC.
“Angela was in the chamber salivating as she was sticking the knife in, but then she’s always there to kick Keir when he’s down,” a second Labour source said, adding, “But behind the scenes it was Alan and Jess doing the heavy lifting.”
An ally of Rayner rejected the characterisation. In fact, Rayner had stuck to the facts in the chamber.
“Given the public disgust and the sickening behaviour of Peter Mandelson and the importance of transparency, in 2022 I proposed a humble address seeking information about Personal Protective Equipment [PPE] which the [Conservative] party resisted,” she said.
“Should we not have the ISC have the same role in keeping public confidence in the process?”
A spokesman for Rayner and Downing Street declined to comment.
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Video shows flashpoint over flags in town divided by plan to house 540 migrants
ByJoe Duggan
Feb 5, 2026 7:08 pm CET
Video shows flashpoint over flags in town divided by plan to house 540 migrants
The row over flags displayed in Crowborough, right. Lorna Marter, 37, left, said the flags had been put up by her children (Photos: The i Paper)
Outside an ex-military site in Crowborough, a late morning confrontation laid bare growing tensions in the East Sussex town over asylum seeker accommodation.
A scuffle broke out between a woman who had cut down Union Jack and St George’s flags from fencing outside Crowborough Training Camp and three protesters trying to take them back.
Minutes later, a bus carrying migrants arrived at the former military barracks, which has seen weekly demonstrations since plans to house up to 540 men were revealed in October.
The woman – who asked not to be named – said she was “shaken” by the argument with two men and a woman, but had stopped to take down the flags as she found them “really offensive”.
“I cut the flags down. They’re being used for racist, aggressive purposes, to make these people, these asylum seekers, feel unwelcome,” she told The i Paper.
“The fact this big man is aggressively standing in front of me, raging and then pulling these flags back off me, says it all.
“They all came up to me, and they grabbed them off me. They forcibly took the flags off me and said, ‘these are our property’.”
As she spoke, one of the men was heard asking where she lived and the woman grabbed some flags from her hand.
One of the three protesters, Bob, said they came to the site to get an idea of movements into the camp and saw her “ripping off” the flags with scissors.
“She started telling us that we’re racist and don’t we know what this flag means?” he said.
“I said, ‘It’s the flag of our country. Why is that being racist?’”
When it was put to him that the woman had felt intimidated, he replied: “Why didn’t she just give us the flags back?”
Sussex Police said no criminal offences were identified after officers on patrol responded to an “altercation”.
But the dispute is a microcosm of how the issue of asylum accommodation has divided the country and sparked anger in local communities, with Crowborough the latest flashpoint.
In a recent environmental impact assessment sent to Wealden District Council, Steve Reed, the Housing Secretary, warned of the risk of riots over plans to accommodate asylum seekers at the base, which had been used by Army cadets.
There have been regular peaceful protests in the town, but nothing to suggest any escalation, the council has said.
The statement from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government on behalf of Reed also said there is no previous evidence to indicate increases in crime from asylum seeker accommodation.
But local residents in Crowborough who spoke to The i Paper say they have safety concerns after the first 27 male asylum seekers were rehoused at the site last month.
Banners and flags draped at the entrance to Crowborough army base Photo: Joe Duggan
Banners and flags draped at the entrance to Crowborough Training Camp (Photo: Joe Duggan)
Last year, disturbances broke out in Epping outside a hotel housing asylum seekers after an Ethiopian resident, Hadush Kebatu, sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl and a woman eight days after arriving in the UK on a small boat.
“I’m scared for my kids’ safety. I don’t want them to walk around the streets anymore,” said, Lorna Marter, 37.
“I’ve got an 11-year old, a 13-year-old and 15-year-old daughter as well. I just went for a walk down to the other gate on my own, and I felt uncomfortable.”
She held the flags that were cut down earlier that morning, which she said her children had put up on Saturday.
Concerns about the camp have led to residents forming a group called Crowborough Patrol, whose members wear hi-vis jackets and branded red baseball caps as they walk through the town.
Dave Williams, who lives next to the base, said he has installed £5,000 of security around his land, with estate agents saying he and other homeowners can now “forget” about selling.
Dave Williams, who lives next to the base, said he has installed ?5,000 of security around his land, with estate agents saying he and other homeowners can now “forget” about selling. Photo: Joe Duggan
Dave Williams, who lives near the base, has installed £5,000 of security measures around his property (Photo: Joe Duggan)
“Placing 540 unvetted males in a very small town, in a small camp right where there’s a lot of housing right on the edge of town, I think it’s ill-conceived,” he said.
“They can’t justify putting it so close to a town and really allowing them to have freedom of movement when we don’t know who they are, where they come from, what the background is.”
The Home Office says the site has 24/7 security with CCTV and strict sign-in processes for residents who have completed health and police checks before arriving at the base.
Mr Williams said he had attended the protests that have seen hundreds march through Crowborough against the Government proposals.
But not everyone in the town of around 22,000 is supportive of the weekend rallies.
“I’d hate to be a refugee with nowhere to go, so I just hope that they behave themselves and don’t give people cause to say, ‘I told you so’. But otherwise I don’t go marching,” said Alison Atkinson, 73.
I’d hate to be a refugee with nowhere to go, so I just hope that they behave themselves and don’t give people cause to say, ?I told you so?. But otherwise I don’t go marching,? said? Alison Atkinson, 73m in Crowborough.
Alison Atkinson, 73, says she has not attended the marches against using the military site in Crowborough as accommodation for asylum seekers (Photo: Joe Duggan)
“I’m one of the Crowborough litter pickers, and I do more good keeping the town nice than they do marching up and down.
“Decent folk can’t get up and down the road, and an ambulance would never get through. So they’re a little bit of a nuisance.”
Carlos, 65, said he felt “fifty-fifty” about asylum seekers being housed at the camp.
“Obviously, they’re [the protesters] not all from Crowborough. They’re coming from other towns as well,” he said.
“People in private, they’re saying that they feel for the migrants. But then again, they say they feel for their local residents as well.”
But migrants’ rights group Care4Calais said Crowborough is “another disaster waiting to happen” after asylum seekers’ housed at ex-military base Wethersfield in Essex and Napier Barracks in Kent reported the sites were “isolating and retraumatising”.
Hundreds of people assemble, waving flags and banners, outside Crowborough Training Camp, where the Home Office is planning to house 600 male migrants in a former army barracks in East Sussex,
United Kingdom, on January 25, 2026. The first 27 migrants were transported to the camp under police escort at 3:30 a.m. on Wednesday, January 21, 2026. (Photo by STUART BROCK/Anadolu via Getty Images)
A number of protests like this one last month have been held in Crowborough in recent weeks (Photo: Stuart Brock/Anadolu/Getty)
Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, has been tasked with speeding up efforts to close asylum hotels to bring down costs, arguing military sites are vital for the plan.
Home Office figures show the number of asylum seekers being temporarily housed in hotels increased by 13 per cent to 36,273 at the end of September.
Mahmood has vowed to defend any legal challenge “vigorously”.
Kim Bailey, chair of residents’ group Crowborough Shield, which has been granted a hearing to determine if there are grounds for a judicial review, said local people fell “betrayed”.
“Because this is a decision that is going to impact on this whole town, this town’s way of life,” she said.
“They have just ram-raided this decision through with no consultation, no risk assessments, no impact assessments, no consideration for the asylum seekers themselves.”
James Partridge, the Liberal Democrat leader of Wealden District Council, which has submitted arguments to the court objecting to the Home Office’s decision ahead of the hearing , said the camp is “not suitable”.
“This council is completely opposed to the Government’s plans to house asylum seekers at Crowborough Camp,” he said.
“It’s time the Government was forced to listen to what local people are saying.”
A Home Office spokesperson said: “The Government is removing the incentives drawing illegal migrants to Britain.
“That is why we will close every single asylum hotel, moving illegal migrants into basic accommodation like military barracks.
“We are also making it easier to remove illegal migrants off British soil, with nearly 50,000 people with no right to be here returned or deported under this Government – an increase of 23 per cent.”
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