LABOUR needs a clean break from Keir Starmer and the rotten politics exposed by the Mandelson scandal to have a hope of stopping Reform, a leading socialist MP told the Morning Star.

Leeds East MP Richard Burgon, secretary of the Socialist Campaign Group of MPs, says Starmer cannot duck responsibility for ignoring the New Labour grandee’s long and close relationship with paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.

He blames the Labour right’s obsessive factionalism for the disaster.

“Keir Starmer famously said that we should put country first, party second. But what’s happened here is that factionalism has been put before country, before party, and very disturbingly, before respect for the victims and survivors of Epstein.”

For decades Mandelson has been the key figure in marginalising and excluding socialists from Labour. “He famously said he’d like to see the Socialist Campaign Group put in a sealed tomb,” Burgon recalls, a quip that dates back to the Blair years.

“We need to recognise that one of the reasons that a blind eye was turned to Mandelson’s relationship with Epstein after Epstein was put in prison for child sex offences was because of his factional utility for the right of the Labour Party — that influenced Starmer and his advisers’ decision to turn a blind eye to what they did know, and appoint him ambassador to the United States regardless.

“So what we’ve seen is the centring of a nasty factionalism within the Labour Party.”

For Mandelson, courting the likes of Epstein gave him access to the super rich, whose lifestyles he envied, and the hope of becoming one of them. For Epstein, as we know from the emails between them in which Mandelson passed on confidential information about British government plans during the financial crash and advised banks on how to bully the Labour government into dropping a tax on bankers’ bonuses, the relationship gave him inside knowledge that could be turned into ill-gotten profits and political influence.

These cosy relationships between ministers and businesspeople whose interests are directly affected by government policy are now more the norm than the exception in British politics.

“What’s come out in recent days shines a light on how close some people at the top of politics are with some of the richest people in the world, and that should concern us all.

“Peter Mandelson came to personify that because even before these revelations it was known he had an unhealthy fascination with the rich and powerful.

“That’s something that needs dealing with more widely, to clean up our politics. We need a ban on MPs’ second jobs” (a longstanding concern of Burgon’s — he submitted a Bill proposing this to the Commons back in 2021).

“A real tackling of corporate influence across politics generally but also within Labour. Look at reports of donations to the Health Secretary’s office from companies and individuals with links to private healthcare interests. It’s very concerning.

“Look at the information coming out in relation to Palantir.”

The CIA-linked surveillance tech company has been contracted to handle NHS data. It now turns out it’s a client of Global Counsel, a lobbying firm founded by Peter Mandelson; Mandelson’s office arranged a meeting between Starmer, Palantir CEO Alex Karp and the company’s British chief Louis Mosley (grandson of fascist Oswald) last February.

“All of these big corporate interests don’t have the public good at heart but the pursuit of profit.

“The corporate capture of politicians needs to be dealt with. The far right plays on the idea that all politicians are the same.

“And if our response is to demonstrate that we are all the same, then that empowers the far right. We’re staring down the barrel at the real possibility of a far-right government in this country for the first time — a Donald Trump-like government elected.”

To show that it has learned, that it does turn its back on the politics of corporate greed, Labour needs a “complete break” from Starmer and his team, Burgon believes.

But many hold the barriers to a left candidate challenging for the leadership are now too high — with Starmer having changed the rules to prevent anyone like Jeremy Corbyn ever making it onto the ballot again.

“Starmer of course doubled the number of MPs required to get on the ballot paper in a Labour leadership election.

“Along with his advisers he oversaw the banning of council candidates and parliamentary candidates, in some cases for next to no reason, for example for having liked a tweet from the Green Party, excuses like that.

“The same Prime Minister who barred Andy Burnham from even standing for Parliament waved through Peter Mandelson’s appointment to the most important diplomatic post he could give.

“Change is needed. And when a change in leadership comes around, we need a complete break from the current team.

“The goal has to be preventing a far-right government — that’s our historic duty. We can only do it by delivering as a Labour government, and unless the public see a clean break from the unpopular decisions that have been made — on winter fuel payments, on Israel’s war in Gaza — we’re not going to beat Reform.

“So in my view it can’t be anybody who’s been in Cabinet with Starmer defending those decisions. We have to pull Britain back from the precipice and that means real, decisive change.”

Richard Burgon is Labour MP for Leeds East.