(AP) — British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is facing a battle to stay in post after the fallout from his decision in 2024 to appoint veteran politician Peter Mandelson as the U.K. ambassador to the U.S. despite the latter’s ties to late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Starmer’s judgment is in the spotlight like never before, especially after the release last week of millions of Epstein-related documents by the U.S. Justice Department showed how close those links were.

There’s widespread anger that the prime minister appointed Mandelson, a grandee of Starmer’s own Labour Party, to such a sensitive and high-profile post. Starmer had already sacked Mandelson after a first batch of emails were published in September, showing he remained friends with Epstein after the late financier’s 2008 conviction for sex offenses involving a minor.

But the emails made public this week show that Mandelson also passed on sensitive — and potentially market-moving — government information to the disgraced financier in 2009, when he was a member of the Labour Cabinet.

Starmer’s leadership has now been called into question. Several Labour lawmakers have said that he should quit, while others are clearly uncomfortable, following a series of missteps since the party returned to power in a landslide victory in July 2024.

Starmer is trying to fight back. He has apologized to the British public and to the victims of Epstein’s sex trafficking for believing what he has termed “Mandelson’s lies.”

There are a number of ways in which Starmer could go, some more straightforward than others.

The easiest way

The simplest option is that Starmer announces his intention to resign, triggering an election for the Labour leadership. A resignation could possibly come if a delegation of Cabinet members tell Starmer he has lost too much support within the party or if members of his government quit in protest.

Those considered to harbor leadership ambitions include Health Secretary Wes Streeting, Home Secretary Shabana Mahood and former deputy prime minister, Angela Rayner, who had to resign last year after admitting she didn’t pay enough tax on a house purchase. The problem for Rayner is that an investigation into that is ongoing.

But there’s no clear front-runner.

Andy Burnham, the popular mayor of Manchester who was blocked from standing at a special election in the city later this month, would not be eligible as the leader must come from the parliamentary party.

Whoever does run, the election would likely take weeks, with Starmer likely staying in post until that concludes.

Were Starmer decide to resign immediately, the Cabinet and Labour’s governing body would likely pick an interim leader to be prime minister, probably someone not standing to be Labour leader. Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy could fit the bill.

Under Labour’s rules, candidates must have the support of a fifth of the parliamentary party, which equates to 80 lawmakers.

Those meeting that threshold would then have to receive the support of 5% of the local constituency Labour parties or at three least party affiliates, of which two must be trade unions. Affiliates are groups or organizations that are deemed to have interests consistent with those of the Labour Party; including trade unions and co-operative and socialist societies.

Eligible members of the party and affiliates will then vote for the leader using an electoral system that ranks the candidates. The winner is the first candidate to secure over 50% of the vote.

King Charles III would then invite the winner to become prime minister and form a government.

The not so easy way

If Starmer does not resign, he could face a challenge, potentially from within his Cabinet.

Unlike the Conservative Party, which has a history of getting rid of leaders such as Margaret Thatcher in 1990 and Boris Johnson in 2022, Labour does not have that muscle memory. No Labour prime minister has ever been dislodged, though Tony Blair announced his plan to resign in 2007 after a series of low-level resignations.

Challengers would have to meet the eligibility thresholds above, but Starmer would automatically be on the ballot.

Starmer faces a series of hurdles in the weeks ahead. The first will probably come within days when files related to the vetting of Mandelson are published. Starmer will be hoping they show the scale of Mandelson’s lies. Should they not, that could be a point of high jeopardy for the prime minister.

Another potential pitfall could be the special election in Gorton and Denton on Feb. 26, traditionally a safe Labour seat. However, this time it will be a tough fight, with challenges from the anti-immigration Reform U.K. on the right and the Greens on the left.

The decision to bar Burnham from standing also poses a risk for Labour. Though he was blocked on the grounds that a Burnham victory would trigger a costly special election for the mayoralty in Manchester, critics claim that Starmer did not want to see a potentially dangerous rival back in the House of Commons.

After that comes a raft of elections in May. Many in Labour fear the party could lose power in Wales for the first time since the legislature was created in 1999, fall way short in Scotland and get battered in local elections in England.

It’s clear that Starmer faces a difficult landscape.

And that’s barring surprise developments that could further rock his premiership.

“Events, dear boy, events,” Harold Macmillan, prime minister between 1957 and 1963, said when asked what the greatest challenges for leaders were.

Canada and France will open diplomatic consulates in Greenland in a strong show of support for NATO ally Denmark and in the wake of US efforts to secure control of the Arctic island.

Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand travelled to Nuuk on Friday to open the consulate, which officials say could enhance cooperation on climate change and Inuit rights.

She was accompanied by Canada’s Indigenous governor general, Mary Simon.

France’s Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs said Jean-Noel Poirier also would take up his duties as consul general, making it the first European Union country to establish a consulate general in Greenland.

Poirier will be “tasked with working to deepen existing cooperation projects with Greenland in the cultural, scientific, and economic fields, while also strengthening political ties with the local authorities,” the ministry said.

“The first item on the agenda will be to listen to Greenlanders, to hear them, to let them explain in detail their position, and from our side to confirm to them our support, as much as they and the Danish side want,” Poirier told the AFP news agency.

Canada, which Trump has called upon to give up its sovereignty and become the 51st state of the US, pledged to open a consulate in Greenland in 2024, before Trump’s recent talk of a takeover, and the formal inauguration was delayed from November because of bad weather.

Since returning to the White House last year, Trump has insisted that Washington needs to control the strategic, mineral-rich Arctic island for security reasons.

Trump last month backed off threats to seize Greenland after saying he had struck a “framework” deal with NATO chief Mark Rutte to ensure greater US influence.

A US-Denmark-Greenland working group has been established to discuss Washington’s security concerns in the Arctic, but details have not been made public.

Iceland opened a consulate in Nuuk in 2013, while the United States, which had a consulate in the Greenlandic capital from 1940 to 1953, reopened its mission in 2020.

Senior US and Iranian officials have held talks in Oman amid a crisis that has raised fears of a military confrontation between the two countries.

The indirect discussions in the capital Muscat happened as the US military builds up its presence in the Middle East in response to Iran’s violent repression of nationwide anti-government protests last month, which human rights groups say killed many thousands of people.

Speaking on state television after the talks, Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi said negotiators would return to their capitals for consultations, but described the meeting as a “good beginning”.

Iran had previously said the talks would be limited to its nuclear programme. The US, which is demanding Iran freezes its nuclear programme and discards its stockpile of enriched uranium, had said they should also involve Iran’s ballistic missiles and the country’s support for regional armed groups.

Earlier, Oman said its foreign minister had held separate talks with Araghchi, and US special envoy Steve Witkoff and President Trump’s son-in-law and emissary Jared Kushner.

It said the “consultations focused on preparing the appropriate conditions for resuming diplomatic and technical negotiations”.

The last round of talks between the US and Iran over the Iranian nuclear programme had been scheduled for last June but collapsed after Israel’s surprise attack on Iran.

In recent weeks, Trump has threatened to bomb Iran if it does not reach a deal. The US has sent thousands of troops and what Trump has described as an “armada” to the region, including an aircraft carrier along with other warships as well as fighter jets.

Iran has vowed to respond to an attack with force, threatening to strike American military assets in the Middle East and Israel.

For Iran’s embattled leaders, the talks could be the last chance to avert US military action that could further destabilise the regime, which analysts say is in its weakest position since it came to power following the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Trump’s threats came as Iran’s security forces brutally repressed large-scale demonstrations, which were triggered by a deepening economic crisis, and saw protesters calling for the end of the Islamic Republic.

The Human Rights Activists News Agency, a Washington-based group, said it had confirmed at least 6,883 deaths, warning that the number could be much higher, and that more than 50,000 people had been arrested.

The current crisis has brought back to discussions the issue of Iran’s nuclear programme, which has been at the centre of a long-running dispute with the West.

For decades, Iran has said its programme is for peaceful purposes, while the US and Israel have accused it of being part of an effort to develop a weapon.

Iran says it has the right to enrich uranium in its own territory and has rejected calls for its stockpile of highly enriched uranium – 400kg (880lb) – to be transferred to a third country. The country says its uranium enrichment activity stopped after the US attacks last year.

Officials have indicated being open to concessions, which could include the creation of a regional consortium for uranium enrichment, as proposed during talks with the US that collapsed when Israel launched its surprise war last year.

At the same time, Iran says demands to limit the country’s ballistic missile programme and to end the support for proxies in the region – an alliance Tehran calls the “Axis of Resistance” that includes Hamas in Gaza, militias in Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen – are unacceptable and a breach of its sovereignty.

On Tuesday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said he had instructed Araghchi to “pursue fair and equitable negotiations” with the US, “provided that a suitable environment exists”.

For the US, the meeting, depending on its outcome, could offer an off-ramp for Trump from his military threats.

Regional countries are concerned that a US strike could lead to a wider conflict or long-term chaos in Iran, and have warned that air power alone will not be able to topple the Iranian leadership.

Asked if Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei should be worried, Trump told NBC News on Wednesday: “I would say he should be very worried. Yeah, he should be”.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the discussions would have to go beyond the nuclear issue for “something meaningful” to be achieved.

“I’m not sure you can reach a deal with these guys, but we’re going to try to find out. We don’t see there’s any harm in trying to figure out if there’s something that can be done,” he said.

The talks, initially planned to be held in Istanbul, are an effort led by Egypt, Turkey and Qatar to defuse tensions.

Iran, however, asked at the last minute for the location of the meeting to be changed to Oman, which hosted discussions last year, and for it to be limited to Iranian and American officials.