LONDON (AP) — Senior Cabinet ministers on Sunday rallied around U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, whose leadership is teetering over his decision to give Britain’s most important diplomatic job to Peter Mandelson, a scandal-tarnished politician and friend of Jeffrey Epstein.
Starmer will face restive lawmakers in Parliament Monday to fight for his job after the explosive revelation that Mandelson was appointed ambassador to the United States despite failing security checks.
Starmer says he’s “furious” that he wasn’t told at the time, in January 2025, that an intensive vetting process had recommended Mandelson not be given security clearance. The Foreign Office, which oversees diplomatic appointments, cleared him anyway.
Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy said that if Starmer had known, “he would never, ever have appointed him ambassador.”
Technology Secretary Liz Kendall told Sky News on Sunday that Starmer “is a man of integrity and there is no way he would have proceeded” with Mandelson’s appointment had he known.
The top civil servant in the Foreign Office, Olly Robbins, was forced to resign on Thursday — though allies say he was just doing his job and is being made a scapegoat. Robbins is expected to give his own version of events to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday.
Simon McDonald, who was top civil servant in the Foreign Office until 2020, said Robbins had been “thrown under the bus.” He told the BBC that vetting information was highly sensitive and “would never be shared” with the prime minister or his staff.
All the main opposition parties have called on Starmer to resign. Right-of-center Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch said the prime minister’s position is “untenable.” Ed Davey, leader of the opposition Liberal Democrats, said Sunday that the government is “in perpetual crisis, and I don’t think they can get out of that unless Keir Starmer moves aside.”
Starmer’s Labour Party holds a large parliamentary majority, so power to topple him lies with his own lawmakers, who are already glum about the party’s dire poll ratings.
Starmer defused a potential crisis in February, when some Labour lawmakers called for him to resign over the Mandelson appointment. But he could face a leadership challenge after local and regional elections on May 7, in which Labour is expected to do badly.
Some Labour lawmakers think it would be damaging to change leaders at a time of global instability, with wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and with three years until a national election must be called.
Others despair at the prime minister’s repeated missteps since he led Labour to a landslide election victory in July 2024. Starmer has struggled to deliver promised economic growth, repair tattered public services and ease the cost of living, and has been forced into repeated policy U-turns.
Critics say the Mandelson appointment reveals the prime minister's lack of judgment. Documents released by the government in March, after being forced to by Parliament, showed Starmer was warned by his staff that Mandelson’s friendship with Epstein, who died in prison in 2019, exposed the government to “reputational risk.”
But his expertise as a former European Union trade chief and contacts among global elites were considered assets in dealing with President Donald Trump's administration.
He lasted less than nine months in the job. Starmer fired Mandelson in September 2025 after evidence emerged that he had lied about the extent of his links to Epstein.
The release of millions of pages of Epstein-related documents by the U.S. Department of Justice in January brought more revelations, showing that Mandelson’s relationship with the financier continued even after Epstein’s conviction in 2008 for sexual offenses involving a minor.
Emails also suggested Mandelson had passed on sensitive, and potentially market-moving, government information to Epstein in 2009 after the global financial crisis.
British police launched a criminal probe and arrested Mandelson Feb. 23 on suspicion of misconduct in public office.
He has been released without bail conditions as the police investigation continues. Mandelson has previously denied wrongdoing and hasn’t been charged. He does not face allegations of sexual misconduct.
Peter Mandelson is seen outside his home in London, Friday, April 17, 2026. (Jordan Pettitt/PA via AP)
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer leaves after the multinational virtual summit and press conference at the Elysee Presidential Palace in Paris, Friday April 17, 2026 (Tom Nicholson/Pool Photo via AP)
Iran reversed its decision to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and warned that it would continue to block transit through the strait as long as the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports remained in effect.
The escalating standoff over the critical choke point threatened to deepen the energy crisis roiling the global economy and push the two countries toward renewed conflict, even as mediators expressed confidence that a new deal was within reach.
The strait is closed until the U.S. blockade is lifted, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard navy said Saturday night. Hours earlier, two gunboats from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard opened fire on a tanker transiting the Strait of Hormuz, the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said. It reported that the tanker and crew were safe, without identifying the vessel or its destination.
Roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil passes through the strait and further limits would squeeze the already constrained supply, driving prices higher once again. Meanwhile, a 10-day truce between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon appeared to be holding.
The fighting in the Middle East conflict, which is approaching the two-month mark, has killed at least 3,000 people in Iran, nearly 2,300 in Lebanon, 23 civilians and 15 soldiers in Israel, and more than a dozen in Gulf Arab states. Thirteen U.S. service members have also been killed.
Here is the latest:
The Israeli army says it carried out a series of strikes that killed more than 150 Hezbollah fighters.
Among those killed was Ali Rida Abbas, which it said was Hezbollah’s commander in Bint Jbeil. The southern Lebanese town and its surroundings were the site of intense clashes between Israeli troops and Hezbollah militants in the days leading up to the ceasefire.
Israel gave no evidence to support its claims, and Hezbollah didn't immediately confirm the death of its commander.
The ceasefire took effect early Friday.
Iran’s chief negotiator says his country wants “a lasting peace so that war is not repeated again.”
Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf made the comments in a televised interview late Saturday, a few days before a ceasefire deadline is set to expire, according to Iranian state media.
“What is fundamental for us is distrust of the United States,” he said. “At the same time, we have good intentions and seek a lasting peace — one that prevents the recurrence of war.”
He said that the Islamabad negotiations didn’t address the mistrust, but that the U.S. and Iranian negotiators “reached a more realistic understanding of one another.”
He said that the two sides achieved progress in the Islamabad talks, but disagreement remained on some key issues, including the nuclear program and the Strait of Hormuz.
“The gaps remain wide and some fundamental issues are still unresolved,” he said.
He didn’t elaborate with further details.
The Lebanese army said in a statement Sunday that it reopened the Khardali road that links the southern city of Nabatiyeh with the town of Marjayoun.
The army said that it also reopened the road that links the port city of Tyre with the village of Bourj Rahhal. The army is also working on reopening other roads, including a bridge on the Litani River in the village of Tayr Filsay.
During Israel’s invasion of southern Lebanon over the past several weeks, Israel’s air force has destroyed several bridges on the river.
After a 10-day ceasefire was declared as of midnight Thursday, the Lebanese army and the Litani Authority have been working on putting up temporary bridges to replace the destroyed ones.
Iran’s parliamentary Speaker Mohammed Bagher Qalibaf says the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed as long as the U.S. imposes a naval blockade on Iran.
“It is impossible for others to pass through the Strait of Hormuz while we cannot,” he said in televised comments aired by Iranian semiofficial media late Saturday.
Qalibaf, who is Iran’s chief negotiator with the United States, said that the strait is now under Iran’s control, linking the choke point’s reopening to the U.S. lifting of its blockade.
“If the U.S. does not lift the blockade, traffic in the Strait of Hormuz will definitely be restricted,” he said.
He said that the ceasefire was on verge of collapse when the U.S. attempted to mine-clear the strait.
He said Iran viewed the U.S. attempt as a violation of the ceasefire.
“The situation escalated to the point of conflict but the enemy retreated,” he said.
Israel’s military says another soldier died in combat in southern Lebanon, the second death announced in under 12 hours.
It brought the total number of soldiers killed in Lebanon to 15, and was the second soldier killed in combat since the ceasefire.
The military said that another soldier was badly wounded, along with four moderately wounded and four slightly injured.
The navy of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps said that it extended the closure to the corridor it had earlier designated for the safe passage of vessels through the strategic waterway and declared the strait fully closed until the U.S. blockade on Iranian ports and ships is lifted.
On Friday, Iran said that vessels could move through the strait in coordination with it and against the payment of a toll.
But in a statement late Saturday carried by Iran’s state media, the navy warned that any violating vessel would be targeted.
Iran considers the U.S. blockade a violation of the ceasefire between the two countries. Two vessels were attacked earlier on Saturday in the Strait of Hormuz and off Oman’s coast, at least one of them by Iranian gunboats.
Excavators remove rubble from destroyed buildings that were hit on Thursday by Israeli airstrikes, as they keep searching for victims in Tyre city, southern Lebanon, Saturday, April 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
A woman member of the Basij paramilitary, affiliated with Iran's Revolutionary Guard, holds her gun during a state-organized rally in support of the supreme leader marking National Girl's Day in Tehran, Iran, Friday, April 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
President Donald Trump listens to speeches before signing an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House, Saturday, April 18, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Barber Mohammad Mehdi cuts the hair of his client Ayman Al Zein inside his shop, which was damaged in an Israeli airstrike that also damaged Al Zein's shop, in Dahiyeh, Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon, Saturday, April 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
The sun rises behind a tanker anchored in the Strait of Hormuz off the coast of Qeshm Island, Iran, Saturday, April 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Asghar Besharati)
