Jump directly to the content
Comment
Trevor Kavanagh

Lord Mandelson turning on Britain in the face of Brexit is a low blow even for the Dark Prince

Peter Mandelson has turned his back on the UK during Brexit negotiations by urging leaders to throw Britain to the wolves

Cartoon

EX-COMMUNIST and proven liar Peter Mandelson is the perfect mouthpiece for the totalitarian European Union.

This seasoned plotter thrives on political chicanery and, as ex-Labour PM Gordon Brown found to his cost, sudden betrayal.

 Lord Mandelson is being accused of backstabbing his own country in the face of Brexit
4
Lord Mandelson is being accused of backstabbing his own country in the face of Brexit

It is no surprise that this backstabbing Machiavelli has now turned on his own country, urging EU leaders to throw Britain to the wolves.

Mandy marched uninvited into fraught Brexit negotiations, telling his former Brussels paymasters:

“Forget Great Britain and take care of your own interests.”

It was a breathtaking act of treachery even by the standards of the two-timing Prince of Darkness.

But his duplicity is par for the course for anybody who has followed Mandy’s slippery career over the years.

As The Sun’s political editor at Westminster, I had a ringside seat as he made his 1980s debut with a sinister black moustache and slicked-down hair.

 He told EU chiefs to ignore the needs of the British and only focus on their own during negotiations
4
He told EU chiefs to ignore the needs of the British and only focus on their own during negotiationsCredit: PA:Press Association

I saw him rise from obscurity, crashing and burning twice along the way, to amass a personal fortune from wheeling and dealing with the filthy rich.

Mandy cut his political teeth with the Young Communist League, absorbing the ruthless tricks of Soviet Russia before deciding there was more chance of power in the Red Rose Labour Party. A fast learner, he popped up as hapless Neil Kinnock’s spin doctor, standing over biddable journalists and rewriting their stories.

Later, he shared a Commons room with Gordon Brown before shafting his best mate’s dream of the Labour leadership in favour of Tony Blair.

“Peter is congenitally devious,” said a pal at the time. “He can’t walk a straight line without disappearing to commit some dastardly deed.”

He was so toxic, he needed the codename “Bobby” to conceal his skulduggery from other Labour figures — especially Gordon Brown.

Proof of his dishonesty came in 1998 when he was sacked for lying about his mortgage.

 Mandelson returned to parliament and soon gained powerful role of EU trade commissioner
4
Mandelson returned to parliament and soon gained powerful role of EU trade commissionerCredit: Getty Images

He failed to declare a huge £373,000 loan from fellow minister Geoffrey Robinson when applying for a building society loan — an offence carrying a potential prison sentence.

Millionaire Robinson, who was also sacked, later accused Mandelson of lying to MPs about the affair.

Money is a recurring theme in the life of ex-socialist Mandy, who insists he has no problem with the “filthy rich”.

Within a year, he was back in Cabinet as Northern Ireland Secretary only to be sacked once more for meddling in a passport application by an Indian billionaire.

It is no surprise that this backstabbing Machiavelli has now turned on his own country, urging EU leaders to throw Britain to the wolves.

He scrambled back up the greasy pole, winning a peerage and the powerful role as EU trade commissioner.

The job opened doors to the super-rich and stupendously powerful, including Russian oligarchs and magnates.

Mandelson claimed a meeting with one powerful figure in Russian industry had happened in 2006, but that was a lie.

The two men had met socially in 2004 and in much more questionable circumstances in 2005. As the trade commissioner, Mandy was in charge of EU rules on imports and it was in the Russian industralist’s interests to see the rules relaxed.

 Critics say that it's the EU pension which Mandy is after
4
Critics say that it's the EU pension which Mandy is afterCredit: PA:Press Association

Any private conversations between the two men would therefore have been deeply inappropriate.

Yet in 2005, without telling EU officials, Mandy took a free trip in a private jet to meet the man over dinner in Moscow.

He then flew in the tycoon’s jet to visit a processing plant in Siberia.

To put this in context, Mandelson became EU Trade Commissioner on November 22, 2004. Next day, the EU set up a review of undertakings by the company concerned relating to avoiding certain costs and duties.

The furtive Moscow dinner took place in January 2005. Eleven months later, on December 20, 2005, Lord Mandelson signed a Commission decision releasing the company involved from its undertakings.

Critics say Mandy is mesmerised by the £31,000 EU pension he is due as long as he never brings the Brussels regime into “disrepute”.

But that is peanuts for a man who already occupies a first-class seat among the super-rich elite.

And to misquote Humbert Wolfe’s verse aimed at Fleet Street’s finest: “You cannot hope to bribe or twist, thank God! the European federalist. But, seeing what the man will do UNbribed, there’s no occasion to.”

Overseas aid rockets while Royal marines face cash cuts

WITH the world teetering towards war, Britain is to slash the Royal Marines, sell its only aircraft carrier – and give away £1.2BILLION from the immoral earnings of prostitutes and drug barons.

Overseas aid has rocketed to £13.3BILLION, thanks to EU rules including the “black economy”, every penny of which has to be borrowed.

The Treasury is screaming for cash and slyly raising taxes on the “Just About Managing” and penalties on ill-advised diesel drivers.

Yet we squander billions on political quangos, useless green energy levies and blunders like the £500million fuel subsidy saga which has just brought down the Northern Ireland government.

Theresa May needs to work out how to cut this waste, not increase taxes.

Topics