Peter Mandelson, the Russian superyacht and the scandal we completely misread

When Britain's most powerful political fixer was caught on an oligarch's boat in Corfu, we called it Yachtgate and moved on. The Epstein files now reveal the full picture: a web of Russian money, paedophile kompromat and New Labour access that shaped a decade of British politics.

The recent release of the Epstein files by the US Department of Justice has so far led to little accountability in the US for the many sordid crimes revealed there, but it has caused the swift and decisive downfall of Peter Mandelson. On Monday he was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office, having been under investigation due to allegations he shared market-sensitive government information with Epstein when he was a minister in Gordon Brown’s government (it’s been reported he does not think he’s committed an offence). A scion of New Labour who rode to power with the Blair government, he famously declared in 1998 that he was “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich as long as they pay their taxes”. True to his word, he frequently relaxed in the company of billionaires. In 2008, this led to the affair known as “Yachtgate”, which seemed shocking at the time, but in the light of the revelations in the Epstein files looks like a pretty quaint idea of a scandal.

Yachtgate was about political figures rubbing shoulders with shady Russian oligarchs. It hinted at possible financial improprieties. The superyacht, moored off the coast of Corfu, belonged to Oleg Deripaska, a Russian aluminium magnate who had his US visa revoked in 2006 because of suspected ties to organised crime. In Europe, Deripaska was benefiting from the lifting of EU tariffs on aluminium in 2007, so when Mandelson, Britain’s EU commissioner in charge of trade, showed up on his boat, questions were raised about a possible conflict of interest. 

https://www.thenerve.news/p/peter-mandelson-russia-superyacht-yachtgate-epstein-deripaska-global-counsel