Govt won't offer any incentives for loyalist paramilitaries to disband
BRETT CAMPBELL, Belfast Telegraph, February 24th, 2026
The Government has insisted “there will be no concession” to loyalist paramilitary gangs after Jamie Bryson warned they “aren't going anywhere”.
UUP MLA Doug Beattie has called for all loyalist terror gangs to “disband immediately” following Mr Bryson's remarks that organisations including the UVF and UDA will likely transform into peaceful groups with “structures” still intact.
The loyalist activist also claimed de-proscription of the terror gangs was the “logical end point”, as he argued loyalist paramilitaries should not be treated differently than the IRA which, according to security assessments, maintains its structure while being committed to the political process.
He added that “loyalist groups as a structure aren't going anywhere”.
But a spokesperson for the Northern Ireland Office told this newspaper “there is never any justification for paramilitary activity and there will be no concession to those involved in criminality and harm”.
“Following a recommendation by the Independent Reporting Commission, the UK and Irish governments last year jointly appointed Fleur Ravensbergen as an independent expert on paramilitary disbandment,” they added.
“She is looking at whether there is any scope for a formal transition process and whether there would be public support for such a process. We look forward to receiving her report on this work later this year.”
Ms Ravensbergen was appointed to the role last September.
Justice Minister Naomi Long previously warned the appointment “risks undermining the good work, which is already being done, to end paramilitarism and organised crime”.
She said: “It is difficult to see what purpose an interlocutor will serve, but easy to see how it could give these groups a credibility which they don't deserve.”
Mr Bryson, who regularly engages with loyalist leaders on the issue of transition, made it clear he was not speaking on behalf of any one group, but simply providing his own assessment.
‘Ill-defined concepts’
He urged against discussions of “disbandment” and ill-defined concepts such as “going away” in favour of exploring how structures can be transformed using loyalist influence for “purely lawful purposes”.
Mr Bryson acknowledged there is work to do when it comes to delivering the message without “triggering a frenzy”, and used the analogy of an uninsured car being used for joyriding and “a criminal jamboree” to make his point.
“That's a problem,” he said.
“If the same vehicle is insured, taxed and being driven entirely lawfully, what's the problem?
“The focus needs to be less on the structure and more on what it does.”
Mr Beattie, who is the UUP's justice spokesperson, said he has been clear that terrorist groups “should disband immediately and with absolutely no financial inducement to do so”.
“They can do this tomorrow by stopping their illegal and criminal activities, stopping recruitment, and stopping taking funds from their membership,” he added.
Mr Beattie said the UUP supports Ms Ravensbergen's work “on the understanding that no financial inducement will be offered” which could “reduce the number of terrorists/paramilitaries by a third”.
He warned that those groups with no intention of stopping criminality should face the full force of the criminal justice system.
Growing suspicion’ within grassroots unionism over Assembly reform – Foster
By Rebecca Black, Press Association, Belfast News Letter, February 24th, 2025
There is “growing suspicion” within grassroots unionism in Northern Ireland around reform of the Stormont Assembly, according to a former first minister.
Baroness Arlene Foster sounded the warning while giving evidence to the Assembly and Executive Review Committee as part of its ongoing review into institutional reform.
There have been calls from some quarters for reform of the Assembly following recent political collapses between 2017-2020 and 2022-2024.
The Stormont Assembly and Executive were set up following the 1998 Belfast/ Good Friday Agreement, while some changes were delivered to how the mechanisms work following the St Andrew's Agreement.
Reform of the petition of concern is among the most popular calls.
It is a safeguard mechanism which requires the backing of at least 30 MLAs to force a cross-community vote rather than a simple majority on an issue, but some parties have been accused of abusing it.
Lady Foster told MLAs there must be clear cross-community support for any reform.
‘Unaligned Unionist’
The former DUP leader, who described herself as now an "unaligned unionist", cautioned that there is a "growing suspicion" from grassroots unionism around reform.
She said there is a view that the "language of reform is being deployed not to improve governance, but to tilt the constitutional balance or indeed marginalise one tradition following election results".
"Whether or not that perception is fair, it exists, and in Northern Ireland perception has real political consequences," she told MLAs.
"So reform can't be something that is done to one section of the community, it must be something that is agreed in a broad consensus.
"If mechanisms such as cross-community safeguards are only to operate in a way that benefits one community then we must question the entire basis of people giving their support to the arrangements that have been in place since 1998, and amended by the St Andrew's Agreement in 2006."
Former deputy first minister Mark Durkan also gave evidence to the committee on Tuesday morning.
‘Biodegradable’ BGFA
Mr Durkan, who had been involved in the Belfast / Good Friday Agreement negotiations, said he hoped some of the mechanisms would be "biodegradable", and might fall away as the environment changed.
He said he wants to see reform, describing the current structures as having seen everyone's mandate frustrated with various collapses of the institutions over the years.
"The structures that we negotiated in 1998 were such that people weren't supposed to be able to vet or veto anybody else being able to take a position according to their mandate," Mr Durkan said.
"But particularly courtesy of the St Andrew's Agreement, we have ended up in a situation where people have been able to veto everybody else's mandate, so structures that were designed to stop any one party's mandate being discriminated against have ended up in a situation where we have had everybody's mandate actually frustrated, and the Assembly itself grounded."
Turning to the posts of first minister and deputy first minister, Mr Durkan suggested a change of titles to reflect that it is a joint office.
"Essentially that language was there because one of the parties that was in the negotiation of the agreement would only agree to the joint office if there was a differential in the titles, but the fact is the office was fully designed to be absolutely consubstantial," he said.
"It is meant to be a joint office, I do think the titles should be equalised, perhaps more importantly I would commend the idea of reverting to that joint office being subject to election by the Assembly itself.
"It was very deliberate in the agreement that that joint office was to be subject to open nominations, any two MLAs could be nominated, it did not specify that it had to be a unionist, and a nationalist, any two could be nominated."
Mr Durkan added: "The biggest strength there would be to restore the primacy that was intended for the Assembly.
"That sense of the primacy of the Assembly is something that has decayed over the years."
End of 50:50 policy ‘negatively impacted’ Catholic recruits to PSNI
Sinn Féin MLA, who sits on policing board, tells chief constable to reinstate previous approach during meeting at Stormont
CLAUDIA SAVAGE, Irish News, February 24th, 2026
REMOVAL of the 50:50 policy has had a “negative impact” on the number of Catholic recruits in policing, a Sinn Féin spokesperson has said.
Deirdre Hargey MLA, who sits on the policing board for the party, said the drop in recruits from nationalist backgrounds is “not down to Sinn Féin” ahead of a meeting with the force’s Chief Constable Jon Boutcher.
Recruitment figures released by the PSNI last week showed that the percentage of new Catholic applicants to join the force was at its lowest in more than a decade.
Police said more than 4,000 people had applied for their latest student officer recruitment campaign, with 65.6% from a Protestant background, 26.7% from a Catholic background and 7.7% undetermined.
Between 2001 and 2011, there was a 50:50 recruitment initiative which meant there was one Catholic recruit for every one person from a Protestant or other background.
DUP leader Gavin Robinson said any return to the policy would be a mistake.
Speaking at Stormont Parliament buildings yesterday, Ms Hargey said the drop in numbers shows that the removal of 50:50 “has had a negative impact”.
“That’s something that we’ll be directly addressing with the Chief Constable, and raising with him in terms of looking at 50:50 recruitment again to try and reverse that trend,” she said.
She added: “It worked back in 2001 to 2011 where (we saw) an increase from 8% to over 30% and we believe that we need to get back to that process of work going forward.”
Asked if in their meeting Sinn Féin would be calling on Mr Boutcher to reinstate 50:50, Ms Hargey said: “We think that is a policy, yes, that needs (sic) because it did have an impact when it was introduced the last time.”
Ms Hargey highlighted Troubles legacy cases and more recently the investigation into the death of Belfast schoolboy Noah Donohoe as instances that have “a damage and impact on policing if it’s not done in the right way”.
Asked about initiatives taken by the police to try and improve relations with the nationalist community such as changing operational guidance on the removal of paramilitary flags, Ms Hargey said there is still “concern and barriers in order to command that support”.
“When you speak to young people in nationalist/republican communities, the issues around legacy, the issues of not seeing visible policing on the ground within their community to respond to their needs, and also a culture are barriers that they’re highlighting,” she said.
‘We want to work with Police’
“We want to work with the police in terms of removing those barriers, but they need to be doing more to understand the community, and this is something the police have said themselves previously, that they do need to understand the community, and in order to do that, we believe that more direct and consistent engagement needs to be done.”
Asked how Sinn Féin have tried to engage with the nationalist community on policing, Ms Hargey said, “we have been doing that”.
“I’ve been very proactive at a Belfast level in terms of challenging sectarian manifestations, even from within my own community, and communities across the city as well,” she said. “And we have had regular engagements with the PSNI and with other statutory agencies to deal with those issues.
“But I think it is clear, I mean, the fact that we’re not seeing recruits, that’s not down to Sinn Féin, that’s down to… that there are clear barriers there for members of the community that they don’t feel at this point, that policing is a career for them, we need to understand what those barriers are.”
Teen attacked by gang of 20 youths for being Protestant, says councillor
GARRETT HARGAN, Belfast Telegraph, February 24th, 2026
A mother is “distraught” after her 16-year-old son was viciously attacked in Londonderry city centre for being Protestant, the deputy mayor has said.
The PSNI said it is investigating a report of an assault during the early hours of Sunday.
The attack took place around 2.35am in the vicinity of the Shipquay Place area.
Police said a teenage male sustained injuries including a broken nose as a result of the assault, which is being investigated as “a sectarian-motivated hate crime”. A number of people are reported to have been present.
Crossed Bridge of Peace
Speaking to the Belfast Telegraph, DUP Councillor Niree McMorris explained that “five youngsters” who had attended a birthday party in the Waterside crossed the Peace Bridge to get something to eat.
She said they then faced sectarian abuse. Four of them managed to get away but the 16-year-old was caught and beaten. “I have just been contacted by a distraught mum whose son was attacked in the town last night by approximately 20 youths,” Ms McMorris said.
“His only crime was that he was a Protestant. The young guy, who was only 16, received severe facial injuries and has had to get medical attention in hospital.
“All too often we hear of these mindless attacks happening and it concerns me that some day these attacks will lead to a fatality.
“No one should be attacked because of their religion or for any other reason. I have spoken to the PSNI who will be investigating this attack and hopefully they will identify the attackers on the CCTV cameras, as these attacks need to stop.”
She fears a “ripple effect”, saying that the city centre can sometimes be viewed as a “no-go area” for Protestants at night.
“If anyone has any information, please get in touch or speak directly to the police,” the councillor added.
SDLP MLA Mark H Durkan said: “What a sickening headline to wake up to today, a young man now left with severe facial injuries following what's being treated as a sectarian attack in the city centre.
“It's really troubling to see this tribalism and hatred engendered in the next generation. Sectarian attitudes and tribalism still shape too much of our politics.
“There is more that unites us than drives us apart and we all have a duty, especially public representatives, to focus on what unites us and to temper divisive rhetoric.
“My thoughts are with this young man and his family. If anyone has any information relating to this incident in the early hours of Sunday morning, please contact the police or Crimestoppers.”
Clerical abuse compo cases in Dromore Catholic diocese ‘temporarily paused’
ALAN ERWIN, Irish News, February 24th, 2026
HISTORIC clerical abuse compensation cases against a Catholic church diocese are to be temporarily suspended amid uncertainty over its financial capability to fund pay-outs, a High Court judge ordered yesterday.
Mr Justice Scoffield granted the request for a moratorium on a number of existing claims for damages already before the court.
The application was made by the Diocese of Dromore Trustee while it seeks legal clarification on whether parish property can be sold to help meet any liabilities to victims.
It is understood that dozens of cases could now be put on hold.
The Diocese has been sued in a series of cases, many of them centred on the activities of paedophile priest Malachy Finegan.
Finegan, who died in 2002, allegedly groomed and sexually abused boys while he taught and worked at St Colman’s College in Newry, Co Down.
Millions of pounds in damages have already been paid out in lawsuits mounted over failures to prevent him from targeting pupils.
Payments capped at £80,000
In 2021 church authorities set up a redress scheme for survivors of sexual abuse perpetrated by clergy within the Diocese, with payments capped at £80,000.
Other steps have also been taken to liquidate or realise assets to help compensate claimants.
Last year the sale of the Bishop’s House in Newry was completed, while the sale of associated land remains pending.
The Bishop’s House in Newry was sold last year.
An application was lodged at the High Court’s Chancery Division for an adjudication on what other assets are available to trustees for any settlements in King’s Bench compensation claims.
Based on uncertainty over the Diocese’s entitlement to sell off parish property, Mr Justice Scoffield has been asked to make a judicial assessment.
The court heard there is currently a cash-flow risk that it may not be able to meet any liabilities in the historic abuse cases.
Counsel for the trustees stressed that the request for a moratorium was just to obtain some “breathing space” until the position is resolved.
Unrecoverable legal costs could be incurred by the plaintiffs and defendants in those cases if they were not temporarily put on hold, it was submitted.
With no objection raised by the Attorney General, Mr Justice Scoffield granted the order he likened to stay imposed in corporate insolvency cases.
“The costs are potentially depleting the assets available to meet the previous and existing forecast claims,” the judge pointed out.
“I have been persuaded that it is a sensible and appropriate option to make an order.”
He confirmed that the order, which covers existing King’s Bench claims and bids to enforce damages, will be reviewed in four weeks’ time.
Britain’s King Charles should heed the lesson of the crumbling Irish Catholic Church
Abusers did not bring down the hierarchy here, it was down to the repeated cover-ups by bishops
Fintan O’Toole, Irish Times, February 24th, 2026
The British royal family should think hard on four words that doomed the Irish Catholic hierarchy: “I have compensated nobody.” It was May 1995 and my old philosophy teacher, Archbishop Desmond Connell, was lying through his teeth on the Six One News.
He told RTÉ’s religious affairs correspondent Joe Little that “I have paid out nothing whatever in compensation”. He insisted the finances of his Dublin diocese “are not used in any way” to make settlements in civil actions taken by victims of clerical child abuse.
This was news to Andrew Madden, who had been preyed on as a child by Ivan Payne, a priest Connell had promoted and protected. In 1993, Connell had given £30,000 from diocesan funds to settle out of court a case taken by Madden.
When Madden confronted Connell with his lies, the archbishop told him that he had used the word “are” advisedly: “By using the present tense, he had not excluded the possibility that diocesan funds had been used for such purpose in the past.”
When an official inquiry into clerical child abuse in Dublin asked him about his denials, Connell patiently explained the concept of “mental reservation”, saying: “There may be circumstances in which you can use an ambiguous expression, realising that the person who you are talking to will accept an untrue version of whatever it may be ... mental reservation is, in a sense, a way of answering without lying”.
Prince of the Church
All of this was fine with the Vatican – Connell, after lying to his flock, was rewarded by being made a cardinal, a prince of the church. But it was not fine with the flock who declined to behave like sheep.
Paying hush money to protect a child abuser, lying about it on television and then telling the public that they just didn’t understand the higher purposes behind it all was a display of corruption and arrogance that only the most craven could accept.
A revered institution made the fatal mistake of asking its people to sacrifice too much of their own self-respect on the altar of inherited deference. Once people decided that the sacrifice was no longer bearable, a whole system of hierarchy crumbled to dust. What had seemed impossible came to pass with astonishing rapidity.
For Madden, think Virginia Giuffre. In 2021, she sued the then prince Andrew for “sexual assault and intentional infliction of emotional distress”, alleging she had been trafficked to England when she was 17 by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell and forced to have sex with Mountbatten-Windsor. He “unequivocally” denied – and continues to deny – those claims.
In 2022, however, Mountbatten-Windsor reached a settlement with Giuffre. The sum involved has not been disclosed (and Giuffre, who subsequently took her own life, is not around to speak for herself), but The Daily Telegraph estimated it might be as much as £12 million (€13.7 million). It has since become clear, with the release of the latest batch of documents from the Epstein archive, that Mountbatten-Windsor lied on television, in the BBC Newsnight interview with Emily Maitlis, about his relationships with Epstein and Giuffre.
Follow the money
The potentially explosive question for the British royals is: who paid the hush money? Contemporary reports suggested that his brother Charles (who is now the British king) lent Mountbatten-Windsor much of it and that his mother, the then reigning monarch Elizabeth II, came up with a £2 million contribution, as part of the settlement, to a charity established by Giuffre to help other victims of sex trafficking.
I have no way of knowing whether these reports are accurate, but as this scandal unfolds there will surely be an imperative to establish the full facts. And if two successive monarchs were in any way involved in these payments, the implications are profound.
To understand those implications, Charles and his advisers should look very closely at what happened across the Irish Sea in the 1990s. They may not like to compare themselves to Irish papists, but the Catholic hierarchy had a very similar standing in Irish society to that of the monarchy in Britain.
In the Republic of Ireland, the hierarchy filled the gap left by the loss of royalty. All the habits of deference – the genuflections, the kissing of rings, the use of aristocratic titles (“my lord”), the obsequious complaisance – were exercised in the presence of episcopal authority.
I would suggest that, if anything, this authority was even more profoundly rooted than that of the royals: it compensated for centuries of religious persecution and national humiliation.
The collapse of this structure was unimaginable – until it wasn’t. This is the problem with deference. It is at once immensely potent and extremely fragile. It is, in a democracy, essentially a fiction. It requires not so much the suspension of disbelief as the suspension of dignity. We agree to place in abeyance our knowledge that these people are no better than us. But once that consent is withdrawn, we realise that they may, indeed, be worse.
Worse because the power we project on to them is innately corrupting. And child sexual abuse is the ultimate in the corrupt use of power – not just by those who commit it, but by those who cover it up.
It was not the rapists and molesters who brought down the Irish hierarchy. It was the bishops’ desire above all to preserve the deference of the faithful by covering up the scandals. When that cover was blown, the explosion was deadly.
It remains unimaginable for most British people that the monarchy could collapse. But those of us on this part of our shared archipelago have lived through just such a downfall. We know what happens, not so much when (in the cliche) you let sunlight in on magic as when you let dignity in on deference.
When people realise that an institution they have loved is lying to them and that their loyalty is being exploited to cover up the grossest forms of exploitation, respect curdles into revulsion. Mental reservations about the impossibility of change are snuffed out like church candles.
Believing all trauma in Northern Ireland was caused by the Brits is simplistic
Malachi O’Doherty, Belfast Telegraph, February 24th, 2026
A narrow republican perspective is now deeper than the mere chanting of “Ooh, ah” etc. Take the abuse that Ann Travers receives for commemorating the murder of her sister Mary. She was the daughter of magistrate Tom Travers.
He is routinely described by republican trolls online as a collaborator and a legitimate target of the IRA. That the attack on him was an attack on his wife and daughter too is often dismissed as incidental, as if it is inconceivable that the attackers would have really wanted to kill them too — though they tried and did succeed in Mary's case.
A little background.
Tom Travers had been hearing a case against Gerry Adams for disorderly behaviour. I don't know if that was a reasonable case for the RUC to take; it seems a bit flaky to me. Adams was driving around electioneering with a tricolour flying out the window of his car. The case was never completed.
When it was adjourned for lunch, Adams and his co-accused drove to Long's chippy and their car was attacked. Adams was one of those wounded.
Weeks later, Travers, leaving Mass with his wife and daughter, were ambushed. He was wounded. Mary was killed, shot in the back as she tried to protect her mother, and Mrs Travers was spared by the failure of a weapon to discharge.
When Travers recovered and was ready to take the case up again, he found that it was no longer booked for a hearing.
Catholics invested in Northern Ireland
One of the things overlooked by those who call Travers a collaborator is how much the Catholic community was invested in the running of Northern Ireland at that time. We were not a wholly alienated minority.
A young writer friend said to me once: “Sure, you know yourself, Malachi, a Catholic couldn't even get a job as a binman back then.”
Actually, my classmates leaving school were going into jobs as clerical officers and clerical assistants in the civil service and in Belfast Corporation.
Another naive voice is that of Lola Petticrew, who has dedicated “to the kids of west Belfast” an Irish Film and Television Award for their lead role in Trespasses, adapted from Louise Kennedy's marvellous novel of the same name.
“One in three kids in west Belfast live in poverty. That is the legacy of the war. That is the legacy of Britain's hand in Ireland.”
Well, really? So there is one enemy to blame for the state of west Belfast nearly 30 years after the Troubles.
Every One Still Here
But I'm more worried by part of one of the most remarkable works of literature to be published here. Every One Still Here by Liadan ni Chuinn deserves the praise heaped on it by critics. It is a collection of short stories first published by The Stinging Fly in Dublin and now taken up by Granta.
The title, as I interpret it, refers to the dead forebears who have bequeathed us trauma and confusion.
In two of the stories, this trauma is in the hearts and heads of young people who feel that oppression by the British army has laid waste to the lives of their parents and left them with a sense of a war against tyranny, having been given up on prematurely.
In fiction, this is a reasonable portrayal of characters who might plausibly believe that. After all, they are the young who did not live through the Troubles.
But the book ends with a piece of non-fiction, a litany of those killed by the army, many of them murdered. It isn't even complete, for it doesn't include the names of Karen Reilly and Martin Peake.
And we know from recent reports of SAS atrocities in Afghanistan that soldiers like to shoot people and trust the state to cover for them.
There are people who join the army in the hope of getting a chance to kill, just as there are men who join religious orders in the hope of gaining access to children they may abuse.
I think this would have been a better book without that litany at the end; that it is naive and propagandist and that a great writer should be neither.
And yet some of the critics see that litany of the dead, which excludes everyone who wasn't shot by British soldiers, as the most powerful part of the book.
It isn't. It's as if the dissidents have found their laureate.
Another writer, Michael Magee, with Closer to Home, also addressed life in a working-class Belfast Catholic community, recoiling from its Troubles experience but without tagging on a manifesto. His character recovers and finds a new life.
But there is no context in Liadan ni Chuinn's book other than the political perspective that all trauma here was caused by the Brits. Even Kneecap aren't as simplistic as that.
We elected them and now we are shocked they take us for granted
LETTERS, Irish News, February 24th, 2026
WHEN news broke last week that members of the Northern Ireland Assembly could be set for a 27 per cent pay rise, raising their annual salaries to more than £67,000, the reaction was swift and visceral.
Headlines labelled Stormont “out of touch” and “tone deaf”, while ordinary people on social media and around kitchen tables sounded a familiar, exasperated chorus: “They’re not delivering – what are they doing to deserve this?” Guys, read the room. It’s easy to direct all that anger at the politicians themselves and to rail against the culture of grievance and tribal politics that grips Stormont. But if we are honest with ourselves, the spotlight needs to land on us, too – the voters.
Stormont’s paralysis on key issues – from health waiting lists, to budget stasis, to stalled infrastructure and basic services – didn’t come out of nowhere. It came from a political culture that has been nurtured, reinforced and repeatedly returned by a public that, time and again, elects representatives on the basis of identity, not delivery.
“If we want different outcomes – and we should – we need to be brave enough to demand different standards from ourselves as much as from our politicians
For years, Stormont has been more about flag-waving and culture wars than about fixing fractured hospitals and schools. Parties have invested more energy in headline-grabbing battles than in substantive policy-making. And amid all this, the institutions themselves have often stood still – or fractured entirely.
That dynamic didn’t just happen. We helped put those people there.
Too many voters choose based on tribal loyalties, or to stick it to another community, rather than on competence, vision, or track record of delivery.
I know this because I experienced it first-hand during my own campaign here in Ballymena – a wellknown figure told me flatly that they were voting for Sinn Féin simply “to give the DUP a bloody nose”.
Rewards received without shame
That blunt logic – not who will deliver, but who will hurt someone else – is the very culture that allows a 27 per cent pay increase to be proposed without shame and then defended without humility.
Let’s be clear – there is a role for representative politics in Northern Ireland. There always has been. But when the benchmark for electoral success becomes identity affirmation over performance and results, we can hardly feign surprise when Stormont becomes more about shouting than serving.
And yet the pay rise row lays bare a bitter truth – you can’t have accountability without responsibility. The public regularly accuses politicians of failing the north and in many cases they have. But the people also keep electing them.
If we want different outcomes – and we should – we need to be brave enough to demand different standards from ourselves as much as from our politicians. We need to prioritise delivery over division, results over rhetoric, and competence over convenience.
Until we do that, pay rises, or pay cuts, will only ever be a symptom of a deeper problem – a democratic relationship where expectations and responsibilities are out of balance.
EUGENE REID Ballymena, Co Antrim
Ex-US ambassador Mandelson arrested over claims he passed information to Epstein
ARCHIE MITCHELL and HOLLY EVANS, Irish Independent, February 24th, 2026
Police search two properties as part of misconduct in public office probe
Peter Mandelson was yesterday arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office as part of an investigation by British police into allegations he passed on market-sensitive information to paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein while serving as the UK's business secretary.
It is the latest development in the growing crisis engulfing the former UK ambassador to the US, who has resigned from the British Labour Party and has left the House of Lords after further details of his friendship with the convicted felon emerged in the so-called Epstein files.
UK prime minister Keir Starmer is under growing pressure after he admitted he knew about Mr Mandelson's ongoing friendship with the convicted sex offender when he appointed him, but said that the peer "lied repeatedly” about the extent of the relationship.
Downing Street then tried to control the release of potentially explosive documents that provide insight into how the decision was made.
But in the face of a mutiny from Labour MPs - led by former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner - the government had to back down and cede control to parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee to decide what could be released into the public domain.
The prime minister's acceptance followed the launch of a criminal probe into allegations Mr Mandelson passed information to Epstein while serving in Gordon Brown's Labour administration as it dealt with the fallout from the 2008 financial crash.
Mr Starmer faced a backlash from his own backbenches, including his former deputy Ms Rayner, over an attempt to have some papers "prejudicial to UK national security or international relations” withheld.
Labour MP Andy McDonald said he thought it was "reasonable to expect an answer pretty damn quick” on how Mr Mandelson passed vetting.
‘Beggars belief’
"It beggars belief that we could ever get a security vetting process that would sign off affirmatively on somebody in these circumstances,” he said.
He said it was "an appalling failure of judgment” that Mr Starmer appointed Mr Mandelson, given what was already in the public domain about him.
In a statement confirming the arrest, the Metropolitan Police said: "Officers have arrested a 72-year-old man on suspicion of misconduct in public office.
"He was arrested at an address in Camden on Monday, February 23, and has been taken to a London police station for interview.
"This follows search warrants at two addresses in the Wiltshire and Camden areas.”
Mr Mandelson was filmed being led from his London home to a car by plain-clothes officers yesterday afternoon.
Under British law, police can hold a suspect without charge for up to 24 hours. This can be extended to a maximum of 96 hours. Mr Mandelson could be charged, released unconditionally or released while investigations continue.
Mr Mandelson resigned from the Labour Party earlier this month, saying he wanted to avoid causing it "further embarrassment”, after losing his post as UK ambassador to the US last year because of his links to Epstein.
Mr Starmer rallied around his man in Washington for days at the time, praising the job the ambassador had done penetrating US president Donald Trump's inner circles. But the prime minister was forced to change course last September, dismissing Mr Mandelson with immediate effect.
These developments mark what is almost certainly the end of a career that had previously been defined by remarkable comebacks. His mastery of political intrigue had earned him the nickname "Prince of Darkness”.
Last year, before heading to the US, Mr Mandelson was living in a luxurious farmhouse in the Pewsey Vale in Wiltshire.
Peter Mandelson arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office
Mark Paul is London Correspondent for The Irish Times, February 23rd, 2026
Former UK ambassador to US and Northern secretary was fired in September over links to Jeffrey Epstein
The turmoil in Britain’s establishment over the release of the files of US child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has deepened after former UK cabinet member Peter Mandelson was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office.
Labour Party peer Mandelson (72), a former Northern Ireland secretary, was led from his London home on Monday afternoon by officers from the city’s Metropolitan Police.
They are investigating allegations that he passed market-sensitive information to the US financier Epstein. Emails released as part of the US files appeared to show that Mandelson sent his friend confidential UK government reports.
He also appeared to leak him information about taxes on bankers’ bonuses and gave Epstein confidential information about a bailout package for the euro in 2010 before it had been publicly announced.
Mandelson has denied any wrongdoing or criminal behaviour in relation to his links to Epstein, although he has apologised for keeping up his friendship with him even after he was convicted of child sex offences in 2008.
His arrest came just four days after British former prince, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, was also detained by officers on suspicion of misconduct in a public office. He has also denied wrongdoing.
The Metropolitan Police had already confirmed three weeks ago that they were investigating Mandelson, after the latest batch of Epstein files sparked uproar in British politics when the full extent of his and Mountbatten-Windsor’s links to the sex offender emerged. They had also already searched Mandelson’s homes in Wiltshire and London.
The Labour peer had previously tried to claim that Epstein was just a peripheral figure in his life, but the emails released in the US appeared to show that, in fact, they had a close friendship.
An undated photo of Jeffrey Epstein (right) and Peter Mandelson (left). Photograph: US department of justice via The New York Times
An undated photo of Jeffrey Epstein (right) and Peter Mandelson (left). Photograph: US department of justice via The New York Times
Mandelson was appointed by UK prime minister Keir Starmer as the UK’s ambassador to Washington in December 2024, despite his known links to Epstein at the time and, it seems, warnings from senior Labour Party figures.
Starmer sacked Mandelson from the Washington role last September when the first batch of Epstein files lifted the veil on the depth of his friendship with the sex offender.
The UK prime minister had been advised to appoint Mandelson by his Cork-born then chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, who this month also quit over the affair. Starmer, who has come under political pressure for appointing Mandelson, has accused him of lying about the extent of his Epstein links when he was being vetted for the ambassador role.
Starmer’s government has agreed to release all communications it had with Mandelson after he became ambassador, apart from messages deemed sensitive to national security by a parliamentary committee.
Darren Jones, a UK government cabinet member, told the House of Commons on Monday that the first batch of these so-called Mandelson files will be released early next month.
Mandelson can be held for up to 24 hours following his arrest, although this can be extended to 96 hours with permission from a magistrate.
‘We’ve been paying for happy endings for Andrew for years’: inside story of a royal disgrace, by biographer
Zoe Williams, Guardian, February 24th, 2026
Andrew Lownie spent years investigating the greed and excesses of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Sarah Ferguson for his book Entitled. Here, the writer reveals the barriers he faced in getting to the truth
The Saturday morning I meet Andrew Lownie, the author of “the most devastating royal biography ever written” (according to the Daily Mail), the front page of every newspaper carries the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. Some have aerial shots of the police arriving to search his home, most including the now infamous photograph of his face in the back of the police car. He looks hunted, because he literally has been, but his expression is curiously blank, its most legible emotion grievance. One journalist, Lownie says, reported late on the night of Friday’s arrest that: “Andrew still can’t see what the problem is. He thinks he’s been hard done by. He’s obsessed with other details – whether he can take his horses up to Norfolk, who’s going to get the dogs, where he’s going to park his car. It’s a sort of disassociation.”
Lownie’s office, in his home a stone’s throw from parliament, is a monument to the success of his book, Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York (along with his other books: one on the Mountbattens, one on Guy Burgess, one to come on Prince Philip). One desk is piled high with books about Andrew and Sarah, some of them by Ferguson herself, others warts-and-all, kiss-and-tell accounts from confidants and clairvoyants. Lownie has stacks of rejected freedom of information requests, from UK Trade and Investment; the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office; the Information Commissioner – “They sometimes took so long to respond that they haven’t even downloaded the request before it expires.” He approached 3,000 people from all the way through Mountbatten-Windsor’s life; only a tenth of them would speak to him, which to me feels quite unsurprising, and yet Lownie is indignant. “I wrote to ambassadors, and they said ‘not interested’. This was a matter of public interest. Others, very cheerily when I wrote to them a third time, said ‘nice try’, as if it was some sort of joke. These are the guys I want in the dock, in parliament, on oath. This is the thing that makes me upset. I, perhaps naively, expect standards in public life.”
Entitled was published last year, after four years of research. It builds a cradle-to-police-station picture (he is now updating the book for a new edition) of a royal whose long association with a known child sex offender may look like the nadir of his behaviour, but is also completely congruous with a priapic, exploitative and money-grubbing life in which nothing was ever refused him.
Virginie Giuffre
Before her death by suicide last year, Virginia Giuffre stated that she had been trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein to Mountbatten-Windsor, and raped by him on three occasions as a minor (under US law) when she was 16 and 17. The third time was an orgy on Epstein’s island at which girls were present whom she believed to be underage, but didn’t know for certain because they spoke no English. After a review, the Metropolitan police said last December that it would not be launching a formal criminal investigation into Giuffre’s allegations about Mountbatten-Windsor, which he has denied. He claimed first that he had “no recollection of ever meeting this lady”; then, after a photo emerged of them together, that he was “at a loss to explain this particular photograph”. She brought a civil case against him in 2021, which he settled out of court the following year on no admission of liability. There has been no transparency over the amount, though the figure of £2m to Giuffre’s chosen charity, fighting sex trafficking, is known to have come from the queen. King Charles’s office has always denied that he contributed to Giuffre’s own settlement – estimated at between £7m and £12m – but “since he was running the show with the queen [by 2022], he must have been aware of what was going on,” Lownie says. If 2022 was an obvious moment to strip Mountbatten-Windsor of his royal title, it was by no means the first.
There was a complaint going back years from a royal protection officer on the north gate of Buckingham Palace, who said, as Lownie describes it: “We were concerned that prostitutes were being brought in; we weren’t being given names.” (This witness, Paul Page, was himself found guilty of fraud, “but that doesn’t invalidate what he says”, Lownie continues). In 2006, representing the British monarchy at King Bhumibol Adulyadej’s diamond jubilee celebrations in Bangkok, Andrew was said to have had more than 10 girls a day going in to his room at the Grand Hyatt Erawan. “Often, as soon as one left, another would arrive,” the Reuters correspondent reported, “and this was all juggled amid official engagements.” Throughout Mountbatten-Windsor’s time as special representative for international trade and investment, ambassadors would feed back that he was a liability, rude and visibly bored at official engagements. His staff often requested attractive women be invited to events, to which “one consul replied, ‘I’m a diplomat, not a pimp,’” according to Entitled. “One bean-counter had complained about Andrew’s expenses,” Lownie says, “querying whether he could put massages on the taxpayer’s tab, and it was pushed through. We’ve been paying for happy endings for Andrew for years.” These warnings were unheeded: “There was a safe at the Foreign Office to keep all this stuff,” Lownie says.
There were so many moments that “should have been alarm signals, in the palace, the government and the police”, he continues. An unrelated trial of a former banker, Selman Turk (who is appealing against his jail sentence for fraud), in 2022 unearthed in passing a £750,000 payment made to Mountbatten-Windsor by one of Turk’s clients, who claimed that he advised her to pay the sum to the prince in return for assistance with a UK passport application. (Turk said the money was a wedding gift for Princess Beatrice; Andrew repaid the £750,000 roughly 16 months after he received it and it remains unclear whether he was aware of the money entering his personal bank account, or what it was for.)
“That’s what the Chinese and Russian secret services realised – that the easiest vulnerability of the British establishment is the royal family,” says Lownie. “There’s no scrutiny. They’re greedy. They’re short of money.” And in Andrew’s case in particular, “they’re kind of immoral because of the way they’ve been brought up. And they mixed with lots of important people.”
Winslow Boy meets Erin Brockovich
Mountbatten-Windsor went to Heatherdown, an aristocratic prep school, and then to Gordonstoun, where King Charles also went. Lownie mainly met a wall of silence from the public school, except among people he knew personally. (Lownie went to Fettes College, another Scottish public school, and one of his friends from prep school went on to Gordonstoun as a scholar and used to do Mountbatten-Windsor’s homework. Lownie is very much part of the establishment, and isn’t driven by radicalism. “What drives me is that I just hate bullies. I describe myself as Winslow Boy meets Erin Brockovich,” he says, drolly.)
Mountbatten-Windsor at school was known for being a bully, a loner, supercilious, entitled, indulged. One story from Heatherdown says that he took someone’s exotic stamp collection, simply crossed their name out and wrote in his own, and was never punished. This foreshadows a toe-curling incident 30 or so years later, described in Entitled, quoting Tim Reilly, a former risk management executive. On a museum visit in Russia, Andrew “was angling to be given a Fabergé egg”, Reilly told Lownie. “Even they were stunned by his undisguised avarice … Putin could finish Andrew any time he likes with photos, tales and evidence he no doubt has on Andrew in Russia.”
Anyone who remembers the short marriage of Andrew and Sarah Ferguson will have bits of their lifestyle filed away. The tabloids were salacious but forgiving towards him, calling him “Randy Andy” one minute, then overwhelmed with patriotism when he appeared in uniform. Towards Ferguson, they pulled fewer punches, reporting on her ex-boyfriend Paddy McNally’s “cocaine castle” (in a News of the World headline), her endless holidays, her excessive luggage. Over time, it was priced in that Ferguson’s charity dabbling might not be entirely altruistic, but also attention-getting. Entitled details the hotel suites she leveraged from charities for visits of dubious usefulness, the organisations she affiliated with that never saw any of the money she’d promised, or only saw part of it, the rest going on the fundraising event itself, or on her staff or costs. At the time it seemed par for the course; this is how high net worth philanthropists operate. When you read about the conditions in the orphanages that she was ostensibly fundraising for, you think: who would use that hardship to fund their personal luxury?
The sheer extravagance of the couple, meticulously noted, is bizarre: £150,000 on flowers, scores of thousands on personal trainers Ferguson rarely troubled, him never using a car when a helicopter was faster (which is always), her demanding “a whole side of beef, a leg of lamb and a chicken, which are laid out on the dining room table like a medieval banquet” every night, even when it was just her and the kids. They’d often end up eating crisps anyway (as told by a departing member of staff). They were both having affairs. One of Ferguson’s highest-profile liaisons, with Steve Wyatt, a US multi-millionaire, appears to have started when she was five months pregnant with Eugenie.
They both often claimed to be broke, Ferguson regularly announcing bankruptcy, but it never seemed to dent their spending. In the maelstrom of their divorce in 1996 were questions about what it might mean for the queen, for the constitution, for Charles and Diana, for the royal family. There was also, I suppose, a collective astonishment at the dissonance between the monarchy’s self-fashioning (restraint, duty, asceticism, higher purpose) and this completely trashy couple who would renovate their Berkshire residence, Sunninghill Park, with teddy bears, a helipad and a swimming pool when they were both half out of the marriage anyway. Amid all this, the questions that really mattered were pushed to the margins. Where was the money coming from? What were its sources getting in return?
“It remains a mystery,” Lownie writes in Entitled, “how Andrew has been able to enjoy such an extravagant lifestyle without any obvious sources of income beyond his naval pension, family money he may have inherited and handouts first from Queen Elizabeth and now King Charles. He travels by private jet, has a collection of watches and expensive cars – including a £150,000 Patek Philippe watch, a £220,000 Bentley and a brand-new £80,000 Range Rover … An acquaintance told one paper, ‘I would compare Andrew to a hot-air balloon. He seems to float serenely in very rarefied circles without any visible means of support.’”
The couple’s relationship with Epstein is revolting on its own terms. “They have no real moral boundaries,” Lownie says. “They go and see sex offenders not because they’re concerned about their crimes, but because [these people] might be able to pay some bills for them or introduce them to some useful people.” But what we know of the Epstein files, as shocking as they must be to institutions accustomed to making scandal go away, is only the beginning.
Epstein as Soviet asset
“I know that Epstein was a Soviet asset,” Lownie says. “Robert Maxwell, of course, had strong connections not only with Mossad, but also with Russian intelligence. He had made his money with these textbooks, which he bought cheaply with Russian money.” Ghislaine (Maxwell’s daughter) and Epstein were introduced in the 80s by the grandson of another Russian asset, Armand Hammer, and the relationship between them and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor goes back to 1985. “There’s a huge national security scandal here of penetration,” Lownie says.
‘Prince Andrew believed having sex with me was his birthright’: Virginia Giuffre on her abuse at the hands of Epstein, Maxwell and the king’s brother
Since Entitled was published, people contact Lownie all the time with more information: the day Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested, Lownie received 760 emails. He was passed a letter, dated last December, from the Metropolitan police reminding royal protection officers of their duty towards “the privacy of the protected” – it’s ironic to hear the Met now reminding those officers of their duty to report what they saw.
Lownie had lunch recently with Epstein’s brother, Mark, who doesn’t believe the suicide verdict and has brought in an expert coroner who increasingly doesn’t believe it either. “However incompetent the correctional facility was, it is the prime correctional facility in New York; it’s their most high-profile prisoner; he’s on suicide watch; you take a cellmate out; you don’t make sure the cameras are working; at a key moment, both the guards conveniently fall asleep; you panic and get rid of the body so there’s no proper autopsy – it just doesn’t make a huge amount of sense,” Lownie says. The FBI debriefed Epstein’s cellmate on what he’d said. “Now, Epstein did make stuff up, so you have to take it with a pinch of salt,” Lownie says. But he reeled off a list of names before he died, one a high-level British politician, present at an orgy.
The palace is in damage-limitation mode, it seems. “Keep it to the sexual side – everyone understands that bit – and certainly not go anywhere near the national security scandal,” Lownie says. “The plan [of the palace], I think, at the moment, is to throw Andrew to the wolves.”
Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York, by Andrew Lownie, is published by HarperCollins. To support the Guardian buy a copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
