Peter Mandelson, Keir Starmer’s choice for British ambassador to the US, co-owns a business that helps companies “see opportunities in politics, regulation and public policy”.
Mandelson, who has a long history of favouring corporations in often scandalous situations, looks set to keep his shares in this company while supposedly representing the UK.
He founded his lobbying company, Global Counsel, in 2010, creating a lucrative business from his political contacts built up while a minister under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
Mandelson stood down from Global Counsel’s board last year – probably in preparation for a post with Starmer’s government – but remains one of the two largest shareholders of the firm, owning over 25% of the company.
According to Companies House he is a “person with significant control” of Global Counsel.
I asked the Foreign Office if Mandelson must give up his ownership of Global Counsel to be ambassador.
They did not answer directly, telling me: “There is an established regime in place for the management of interests held by ambassadors or High Commissioners. This ensures that steps are taken to avoid or mitigate any actual, potential or perceived conflicts of interest.”
The Foreign Office would not give any more detail of this “regime”.
Conflict of interest?
It seems likely Mandelson will remain a Global Counsel owner while US ambassador as long as he puts aside active involvement in the company and informs civil servants of any awkward moments.
Global Counsel’s latest accounts say they are expanding to grab “the significant market opportunity arising from increasing geo-political uncertainty and the need for companies globally to pre-empt and react to the consequential change” including “opening offices in Washington DC”.
In other words, they are focussing on the US just as Mandelson gets the top UK job in Washington.
The risk that Mandelson will use his time as ambassador to make friends with multinational and US corporations rather than represent UK interests seems obvious.
Mandelson has repeatedly left his public appointments due to scandals, so an early return to Global Counsel is possible.
Global Counsel’s recent clients include Palantir, the defence oriented US tech company owned by Trump supporting billionaire Peter Thiel currently chasing NHS contracts, and Sequoia Capital, a US tech investor that is a “partner” of Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
Peter Mandelson’s rise
Mandelson was one of the architects of Blair’s “New Labour”. Once a teenage Communist Party member, undoubtedly very clever and drily funny, Mandelson used his knowledge of the Left to steer Labour sharply rightwards.
His manoeuvring earned him the nickname the “prince of darkness”. In politics his one consistent manoeuvre was making Labour suck up to big business, often with bad results.
Back then the US Embassy wanted Blair’s Labour government to accommodate American utility company Enron. They had a bad reputation, including involvement with human rights abuses.
Other Labour ministers kept Enron at a distance, but Mandelson met them, backed them and allowed them to open power stations and buy Wessex Water.
In 2001 Enron was exposed as more than a bad company: they were a criminal conspiracy built on financial fraud that collapsed in scandal.
Mandelson also had responsibility for the “Millennium Dome” – a bizarre corporate sponsored celebration of the year 2000 that swallowed up government attention and ended in shambolic failure.
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The Jeffrey Epstein connection
Mandelson had to leave Cabinet twice because of scandals about relations with businessmen. But his most scandalous association with a businessman was revealed long after he left government.
US financier Jeffrey Epstein mixed his business dealings with sex trafficking and exploiting underage girls. Emails between Epstein and US bank JP Morgan show he was close to Mandelson.
In 2009 Epstein emailed JP Morgan bankers boasting about their friendship, saying “Well for all intends [sic] and purposes Peter Mandelson is now deputy prime minister.”
Mandelson seemed willing to overlook Epstein’s offences to be close to a financial ‘mover and shaker’.
Emails suggest Mandelson stayed at Epstein’s Manhattan mansion in 2009, while Epstein was in prison for soliciting prostitution from a minor.
Epstein also said Mandelson stayed with him in Paris in 2011 – when Epstein was a registered sex offender – and referred to him as “Petie” in emails to JP Morgan bankers.
Cashing in
Mandelson helped lead Labour to defeat in 2010, then left politics (albeit keeping a seat in the Lords) to found Global Counsel. It made Mandelson wealthy. Latest accounts show the firm has a £16m turnover and currently owes Mandelson £1.3m.
Starmer’s announcement specifically cited Mandelson’s role as “co-founder of Global Counsel” when appointing him ambassador, but the firm’s record raises multiple potential conflicts of interest.
Global Counsel’s website says the firm “advises international clients on Russian market entry, the impact of Russian sanctions and navigating Russian policymaking”.
A 2020 Guardian investigation based on leaked documents showed in 2015 and 2016 Global Counsel helped gig-economy taxi firm Uber build Russian business as Mandelson “used his access to pro-Kremlin oligarchs, including some now under sanctions”.
This was after Russia had invaded Crimea. Mandelson’s friendship with now-sanctioned Kremlin-friendly oligarch Oleg Deripaska was key to putting Uber in touch with firms like now-sanctioned state-owned bank Sberbank.
Until June 2017 Mandelson was also personally a director of Sistema, an oligarch-owned Russian industrial conglomerate with defence interests which was sanctioned by the UK and US after Russia’s Ukraine invasion.
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Angering Trump
Team Trump are reportedly angry with Starmer’s choice of Mandelson for ambassador, objecting to his links with China, seen by the Republicans as a dangerous rival nation.
Mandelson personally wrote advice for “Chinese investors” on how to “navigate populism” and deal with “Trump’s isolationist policies” on the Global Counsel website.
Global Counsel’s recent clients include Chinese social media firm TikTok and, reportedly, Chinese clothing giant Shein. Until 2023 Mandelson was president of the Great Britain China Centre, a Foreign Office body encouraging China-UK trade.
Trump’s administration is also trying to bully Starmer’s government, so Mandelson’s appointment has become another flash point.
For their part, Team Starmer seem deeply committed to giving old “New Labour” figures jobs regardless of the consequences – perhaps because they depend heavily on ageing Blairites for a political direction, or perhaps because they hope they too will be offered similar positions by a future Labour government even if their careers end in scandal.
There are suggestions Trump will refuse to accept Mandelson as an ambassador. It seems equally likely the public denigration is designed to make Mandelson into a more easily cowed, lame-duck ambassador.
It doesn’t seem hard to persuade Mandelson to represent US corporate interests, no matter how bad they are for UK public policy.
After all, recent clients of Mandelson’s firm Global Counsel include JP Morgan, the Bank of America and “Fair Civil Justice”, a campaign launched by an arm of the US Chamber of Commerce to try to stop “joint action” lawsuits against big businesses, which critics say would have stopped campaigns against injustice like that of the imprisoned Sub Postmasters.
