Resignation is easy. Accountability isn't.

Peter Mandelson (Photo- CNN)

The resignation of Peter Mandelson from the Labour Party and from the House of Lords, in the shadow of renewed scrutiny around Jeffrey Epstein, is significant - not because it closes a chapter, but because it underlines how unfit our political system is to deal with elite misconduct, reputational damage, and accountability.

The media reaction has been as predictable as it was inevitable, with many gleefully inferring criminal guilt by association and extending that to the Prime Minister, who is of course associated with Mandelson. There should indeed be questions to be asked of Keir Starmer, what he knew and when, but there are also more pertinent questions about standards, judgment, and power. These demand answers that require more than a resignation and an apology.

An unfit choice

Irrespective of the Epstein revelations, Mandelson was a wholly unsuitable choice for any ambassadorial role. Diplomacy relies on credibility, restraint and the capacity to represent a country without baggage that distracts from the job itself. Mandelson’s long-standing reputation as a fixer, his comfort with opaque power networks and his embodiment of an entitled political class made him a poor fit even before his links to Epstein came to public attention.

The Epstein context did not create that problem; it merely exposed it. Appointments at this level should be about trust and public confidence, not about recycling insiders who have spent decades insulated from consequence. It should have been obvious that Mandelson was a patently unfit choice - so why was he appointed and what does this say about the Prime Minister's decision-making?

Resignation is not accountability

Mandelson has made the correct decision to resign from both the Labour Party and the House of Lords. But resignation is not accountability; it is damage control. The deeper issue is that there is still no effective mechanism for removing members of the Lords or revoking titles when conduct brings the institution into disrepute.

This is not a hypothetical concern. There have been criminals in the House of Lords before, and there will be again unless there is an overdue legal change. An unelected chamber, appointed for life, with only the loosest standards of removal, is structurally incapable of policing itself. The Mandelson episode once again shows that honour without enforcement is meaningless.

I understand why the Labour Party is reported to have been looking at making a change in the law to address this and why opposition partied (the Liberal Democrats included) have been calling for it. However, I am uncomfortable with seeking to do this purely on the basis of a situation that is creating embarrassment for the government - the end goal must be the integrity of Parliament. 

If Parliament is serious about public trust, it must legislate for clear, transparent processes to expel members and strip honours where appropriate. Anything less signals that elite status still functions as a shield.

The real story is bigger than "Mandy and Andy"

There is another danger here: the narrowing of focus. The fixation on Mandelson and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor risks becoming a distraction from the broader reality of what the Epstein scandal represents.

As Michael Rosen put it:

“The story has turned into being about 2 bad boys, Mandy and Andy, and not about an elite group of men creating a den, cut-off from the real world where they could behave as they want – which was about corrupt finance and brutalising women.”

That observation cuts to the heart of the matter. Epstein was not an aberration; he was a node in a wider system of wealth, impunity and misogyny. Focusing on a handful of high-profile individuals allows the structures that enabled them – financial secrecy, social deference, political insulation – to remain intact and unchallenged. Those sensing an opportunity to strike a pose of moral outrage at the government, while ignoring these wider dynamics, are little more than cynical opportunists. Meaningful engagement requires confronting the system itself, not merely scoring points from its most convenient symbols. 

Stopping at Mandelson lets the system off the hook. The same standards and scrutiny must apply in the case of Michelle Mone as they do with Peter Mandelson. The common thread is not personality or party, but a political culture that confers titles, access and deference while treating accountability as optional. From procurement scandals to elite social networks, the problem is a system that rewards proximity to power and insulates those within it from meaningful consequence. Fixating on Mandelson alone risks mistaking a symptom for the disease; without cultural and structural change, removing one figure merely clears space for the next.

What should happen next?

Mandelson’s resignation should not be treated as closure. It should be a prompt to rethink who we appoint, how we remove them and why elite spaces like the House of Lords remain so resistant to accountability. Without structural reform, we will repeat this cycle again and again: scandal, outrage, resignation, amnesia.

It is not enough for individuals step aside when pressure becomes unbearable. The vital question is whether our political system is finally prepared to stop protecting them in the first place.