THE SNP has challenged Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to follow the King’s lead with Andrew Windsor and strip Peter Mandelson of his peerage.

Despite having twice been forced from ministerial office, the scandal-prone former Hartlepool MP — dubbed “the prince of darkness” — was made a life peer in 2008 by then prime minister Gordon Brown.

More allegations on his relationships within the business community were to follow, including his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, before and after the latter’s conviction for sex trafficking.

Despite the well-documented friendship with the convicted paedophile, Sir Keir appointed Mr Mandelson to Britain’s premier diplomatic role as ambassador to the US in February.

Just seven months later, the Prime Minister was forced to sack him when emails, in which Mr Mandelson urged his “best pal” Epstein to challenge his 2008 conviction for trafficking under-age girls for sex, were released by US authorities.

Whereas Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, another friend of Epstein’s, was stripped of his titles by his brother last week, Mr Mandelson continues to be both a member of the Labour Party and a peer, something SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn is determined to correct.

“It is wrong on every moral level that Peter Mandelson is being kept in position by Keir Starmer, able to make laws for life in the House of Lords. 

“If the Prime Minister doesn’t have the moral clarity to understand why that is a disgrace, he doesn’t deserve to be in the office he holds.

“Is he protecting Peter Mandelson at all costs because he knows that one more scandal will bring his government crashing down?

“These questions won’t go away while Peter Mandelson is kept in place.”

The Cabinet Office was contacted for comment.