❓WHAT HAPPENED: Nigel Farage announced he is putting his Reform Party on a “general election war footing” at a rally in Birmingham, England, on Monday, as a Jeffrey Epstein-related scandal threatens to bring down Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.
👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: Nigel Farage and the Reform Party, Keir Starmer and the Labour Party, Starmer’s former ambassador to the U.S., Lord Peter Mandelson, and Mandelson’s deceased “best pal” Jeffrey Epstein.
📍WHEN & WHERE: February 9, 2026, in Birmingham, England.
💬KEY QUOTE: “The Mandelson saga tells you all that you need to know. Its depths, the numbers of people that it involves, the sheer level of corruption is probably the biggest political scandal we’ve seen for a hundred years.” – Nigel Farage
🎯IMPACT: The Mandelson-Epstein scandal has put Prime Minister Starmer’s position in jeopardy, with calls for his resignation from senior Labour colleagues.
Reform Party leader Nigel Farage is putting his party on a general election “war footing” as a scandal involving the now-former British ambassador to the U.S., Lord Peter Mandelson, and deceased pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein threatens to bring down Starmer’s government.
Starmer appointed Mandelson, a former European Commissioner and Cabinet member under prime ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, as ambassador to the U.S., despite a history of prior scandals in high office and his known friendship with Epstein. Mandelson had to resign his ambassadorship following further revelations of his relationship with the sex trafficker, with the scandal deepening after even more recent revelations suggesting he shared confidential information with Epstein during Brown’s premiership.
Starmer’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, has already been ousted in the fallout from the Mandelson scandal, although Starmer himself is insisting he will not resign as of the time of publication.
Speaking at a rally in Birmingham, England, Farage noted that the leader of the Labour Party in Scotland, Anas Sarwar, has now called for Starmer to go, and that the Prime Minister has to meet Labour Members of Parliament (MPs) this evening, where they may demand his resignation.
“[T]he political life of the most unpopular and the most useless Prime Minister in living memory is drawing to a close,” Farage said at the rally, adding: “The Mandelson saga tells you all that you need to know. Its depths, the number of people that it involves, the sheer level of corruption is probably the biggest political scandal we’ve seen for a hundred years, and it’s not as if the PM wasn’t warned.”
“He won’t be there for long. He’ll be gone, and replaced by someone undoubtedly far worse,” Farage suggested, noting how the previously governing Conservatives took “14 long years” to destroy their reputation while Starmer’s Labour Party has managed it in a matter of 18 months.
Municipal elections across Britain, which Farage likened to the U.S. midterms at the rally, are due in May, even if a snap general election is not called.
BREAKING NEWS. I am putting Reform UK on a general election war footing. 🚨 https://t.co/Igr425BCks
— Nigel Farage MP (@Nigel_Farage) February 9, 2026
This story is developing…
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