The prime minister has faced mounting pressure to resign over the latest revelation in the Peter Mandelson scandal.
Keir Starmer is facing pressure to resign over the most recent Mandelson scandal (Image: Getty)
It appears even Labour loyalists are losing confidence in Keir Starmer over the latest revelation in the Peter Mandelson scandal. Labour MP Emily Thornberry appeared on Good Morning Britain on Wednesday (April 22), where she admitted she doesn’t know what lies ahead for the PM. Starmer has faced mounting pressure to resign after it was revealed that Mandelson failed the vetting process before he was appointed the UK’s ambassador to the US.
Mandelson was sacked from the position in September 2025 after the true extent of his friendship with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was exposed. Attention has now once again turned back to how Mandelson was appointed in the first place, particularly after it emerged that the Foreign Office overruled concerns despite knowing he had failed the vetting process.
Speaking to presenters Ed Balls and Susanna Reid, Thornberry said she had believed things were improving in Number 10, but now sees Starmer “stumbling back into the hole” he was once in.
She remarked: “I think that things had got better and that the changes that had happened at No 10 were, it wasn’t so much of a boys club anymore.
“There were different people, and I got the impression that he was much more relaxed and he was much more himself, and that was good. He’d made the right decision on Iran, and I felt like he was digging himself out of a hole.”
The 65-year-old added: “This is obviously a stumble back into the hole again, I don’t know what’s going to happen next. Let’s see.”
One Good Morning Britain viewer is convinced this has marked the end for Starmer after Thornberry “refused to back him”.
They wrote: “CRISIS AT NO.10: Pressure on Keir Starmer reaches BOILING POINT as even his closest Labour allies abandon ship! In a jaw-dropping Good Morning Britain interview, senior Labour stalwart and Starmer loyalist Emily Thornberry was grilled on whether the embattled Prime Minister should resign over the explosive Peter Mandelson US ambassador vetting scandal, and she flatly refused to back him!
“When asked directly if Starmer should go, Thornberry dodged: ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen next. Let’s see.’ That’s code for game over. Just yesterday, Ed Miliband threw in the towel too.
“Now Thornberry, a die-hard Starmer ally, has joined the retreat. The usual defenders are folding. It’s just a matter of time before this shambolic premiership collapses.”
They continued: “Thornberry tried to soften the blow, claiming things had ‘got better,’ changes at No.10 had made Starmer ‘more relaxed’, and he’d made the ‘right decision on Iran’ while ‘digging himself out of a hole’. But then came the killer line, the one that buried him: ‘This is obviously a stumble back into the hole.’
“She knows he’s done. Even his own side can see the writing on the wall. The Mandelson fiasco, pushing through a controversial appointment despite failed security vetting, sacking a top civil servant, and the whole Epstein-linked mess, has exposed the chaos at the heart of Starmer’s government.”
They concluded: “Labour’s house of cards is tumbling.”