LONDON, February 9. /TASS/. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer may be forced to resign within a week, Bloomberg reported citing sources in the ruling Labor Party.

The reason for such conversations was a scandal with the appointment of Peter Mandelson, who was friends with American financier Jeffrey Epstein convicted of pedophilia to the post of British ambassador to the United States. This scandal has already led to the resignation of the British Prime Minister's Chief of Staff Morgan McSweeney, who resigned on Sunday.

According to Bloomberg, some Labor Party MPs were surprised that Starmer still retains his post, although it was he who authorized Mandelson's appointment as ambassador. The agency said that some employees at 10 Downing Street are privately urging government members to convince the prime minister to resign, or threaten their resignation to provoke his departure. According to an adviser to one of the ministers, the probability that Starmer will resign next week is "50-50."

The agency said that to retain his post, Starmer may offer to return to the government his former deputy Angela Rayner, who left the cabinet in September amid a scandal with the non-payment of a stamp duty when buying an apartment in the south of England. Starmer can also put Energy Secretary Ed Miliband at the head of a higher-status ministry. Earlier, both Rayner and Miliband were named among the likely candidates for the post of prime minister in the event of Starmer's resignation.

Among other contenders, the British media also singled out Health Secretary Wes Streeting, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper and Secretary for Defense John Healey and his deputy Alistair Carns.

Starmer's possible resignation will not automatically mean new general elections. Instead, the Labor Party may hold a party vote to elect a new leader who will head the government. This is exactly what the Conservatives did in 2022, having replaced the prime minister twice in a year (Boris Johnson and Liz Truss).

However, Sky News reported that Starmer would try to convince his fellow party members not to seek his resignation. He is to address the Labor Party faction in the House of Commons (the lower house of the British parliament) on February 9. On February 11, the prime minister is going to separately address female MPs from the Labor Party. It is assumed that Starmer may also address the nation on February 9 to talk about Mandelson's appointment.

McSweeney has been in office since October 2024. He was previously Starmer's chief advisor. McSweeney is considered the architect of the Labor Party's general election campaign in July 2024, which helped Labor return to power after 14 years in opposition. McSweeney's deputies, Jill Cuthbertson and Vidhya Alakeson, were appointed interim chief of staff to the prime minister.

On February 3, Scotland Yard launched a criminal investigation into Mandelson, who is suspected of providing confidential data from the British government to Epstein. According to the British media, which studied Epstein's dossier, Mandelson in 2009 shared with him confidential information about the tax reform of the Labor Party government, and revealed the upcoming program of assistance from the European Union to the countries of Southern Europe, which were hardest hit by the global financial crisis. On February 6, the police raided two of Mandelson's homes.

Mandelson was appointed British ambassador to the United States in February 2025 and fired in September after new details of his friendship with Epstein were revealed. For many years, Mandelson was considered one of the most influential members of the Labor Party. He was a member of the House of Commons from 1992 to 2004, and served as minister of state for Northern Ireland in Tony Blair's government (1999-2001). Mandelson then served as European Commissioner for Trade (2004-2008), and in Gordon Brown's cabinet as Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (2008-2010). In 2008, he was inducted into the House of Lords (upper house).

On February 1, 2026, Mandelson said he had left the Labor Party. On February 3, he said he would leave the House of Lords. He retains the title of lord, but the government has already said it is developing an urgent bill that would strip Mandelson of his lifetime title.

Epstein was detained by New York State law enforcement on July 6, 2019. The prosecutor's office said there was evidence that in 2002-2005 he organized visits to his Manhattan home by dozens of underage girls, the youngest of whom was 14. Epstein's friends and acquaintances included a large number of current and retired officials not only from the United States, but also from many other countries (including former heads of state), major entrepreneurs and show business stars. The criminal prosecution of the financier in the United States was terminated after his suicide in a prison cell in August 2019.