Starmer’s top team remains loyal in public, but some Cabinet ministers are voicing concerns about his future in private.
Downing Street hopes the departure of McSweeney — Starmer’s closest political adviser since becoming Labour leader, and a lightning rod for some lawmakers’ anger over the handling of the Mandelson scandal — will satisfy his critics.
McSweeney said Sunday he is stepping down after taking “full responsibility” for advising the PM to appoint the former Labour peer to the Washington role.
Mandelson, who was sacked last September over his friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, is now under police investigation over alleged misconduct in public office after a tranche of documents in the Epstein files appeared to show he leaked sensitive documents to the late financier at the height of the 2008 economic crash.
But Andy McDonald, a member of the left-leaning Socialist Campaign Group of MPs, said Starmer’s “purge … of the left” needed to end and the “Mandelsonian agenda” hadn’t worked.
“It has caused us so much pain and harm and it’s diluted who we are as a Labour party,” McDonald told the BBC Monday. “We really do need more of a clear signpost and not a weather vane.”