LORD Peter Mandelson of Foy has resigned his position in parliament following revelations about his friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein but he retains his life peerage – for now.

Lord Mandelson stated that he was resigning from the Labour Party last weekend to avoid causing it further embarrassment after he was featured in the latest release of the Epstein files.

The 72-year-old was made a life peer in 2008, during Gordon Brown's government and chose to become Baron Mandelson of Foy in the County of Herefordshire and Hartlepool in the County of Durham.

Foy is a hamlet just outside Ross-on-Wye and he lived at the stark-looking No1 Brick End Cottage, which has since been renamed, for eight years.

It was while he was living at this cottage, he spotted the tightly furled bud that inspired New Labour's red rose symbol.

But now Lord Mandelson's peerage could be revoked as the Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is currently investigating introducing legislation to permanently strip him of his peerage.

Files released this week by the US Department of Justice show that Lord Mandelson had been passing material to Epstein while serving as business secretary in the Labour government during the 2008 financial crash.

The Prime Minister has gone on to accuse Lord Mandelson of lying during the vetting process to appoint him as the US ambassador in 2024.

Downing Street says that discussions with Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee on the process of releasing documents related to Lord Mandelson’s appointment as US ambassador was ongoing.

The friendship between Epstein and Mandelson was publicly known about as it lasted from around 2002 to 2011 and continued after Epstein's first conviction in 2008.

Among lasy year’s disclosures was an entry i in Epstein's ‘birthday book’ in a 2003 in which Mandelson described him as his ‘best pal’ and emails dating from 2008 in which he expressed support for Epstein.

Public criticism resurfaced following the release of US court documents which included a cache of private emails between the two men exploding the myth that the two men hardly knew each other.