Downing Street chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, in Downing Street, central London, ahead of the visit today of President Zelensky, October 10, 2024
…
McSweeney deceitfully claimed that Labour Together was about uniting factions in the party. In reality, it ran a concealed campaign to undermine leader Jeremy Corbyn and force him out of office.
It operated on the understanding that the party membership would never willingly embrace a rightwinger as leader and that the restoration of Labour to what it regarded as its only fit and proper stewards would have to proceed through lies.
Keir Starmer was the instrument of this project, used by McSweeney to pose as a continuer of Corbyn’s policy agenda, but in reality someone prepared to discard all the policies on which he won the leadership and hand the management of the party over to the hardest right-wing faction.
In running this deceit, Labour Together under McSweeney “forgot” to declare nearly three-quarters of a million pounds in donations to the Electoral Commission. It was found guilty of 20 breaches of electoral law.
It was unwilling to submit its funding by multimillionaires to scrutiny while it was secretly backing Starmer’s leadership bid, all the time denying that it was doing so.
All this and much more was revealed in the book The Fraud, by investigative journalist Paul Holden. Labour Together was anxious to divert attention from its law-breaking, since that would undermine McSweeney, by then virtually running Starmer’s Labour.
Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership is intensely relaxed about assaulting those least able to defend themselves – the very poorest and most vulnerable.Keir Starmer refuses to be outcnuted by Nigel Farage’s chasing the racist bigot vote.Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.
[Declassified UK] Exclusive: Complaint centres around concerns that the pro-Israel ‘lobby group’ should have declared its donors
Labour Friends of Israel director Michael Rubin in Downing Street, 4 June 2025. (Photo: Ian Davidson / Alamy )
Labour Friends of Genocide Israel has been referred to the Electoral Commission over concerns about its opaque funding.
Activist Andrew Feinstein, who filed the complaint, said he was concerned that the pro-Israel group “may have breached electoral law”.
Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) has previously described itself as “a Westminster based lobby group working within the British Labour Party to promote the State of Israel,” and has funded dozens of British politicians to travel to Israel.
But it has repeatedly refused to disclose where its money comes from, other than to deny that it is funded by the Israeli government.
Feinstein’s complaint explains that there is “ambiguity over whether LFI is (or ever was) a members association”.
He added: “This question is vital because ‘members associations’ may have to register with the Electoral Commission as a regulated donee. This would also create an obligation for LFI to disclose details about certain donations that it receives.”
LFI has denied being a members association, yet many senior politicians have claimed they are “members”.
Seven ministers – including Rachel Reeves and David Lammy – have each stated they are a “member” of the group in the List of Ministerial Interests. And the trade secretary, Peter Kyle, also claimed to be an LFI “member” at an event earlier this month.
Genocide denying UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy says that UK is suspending 30 of 350 arms licences to Israel. He also confirms the UK government’s support for Israel’s Gaza genocide and the UK government and military’s active participation in genocide.Keir Starmer justifies why he has to travel abroad so muchKeir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer speaks at the Labour Business Conference on 1 February 2024 | Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
Party accused of breaching Electoral Commission rules by failing to publish value of staffer seconded from banking giant
The Electoral Commission has been urged to investigate Labour over its year-long failure to declare the value of a donation from banking giant HSBC.
HSBC seconded one of its staff members to Keir Starmer’s party in February 2023, in an arrangement that sees the bank continue to pay the staffer’s wages while they carry out work for Labour.
More than a year later, the party has still not published the value of this in-kind donation – an apparent breach of the Electoral Commission’s rules.
The former chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life warned it is “absolutely crucial” that Labour follows the rules around declarations, and said the commission “should be looking at this”.
The HSBC staffer, whom openDemocracy is choosing not to name, works in shadow business secretary Jonathan Reynolds’ office in a part-time role focused on engaging with businesses.
They have appeared on every edition of the official register of MPs’ staff and researchers, which is updated monthly, since February 2023.
The register lists people who have parliamentary passes through their work for MPs, as well as any outside interests they may have, or benefits they have received over a certain value.
Prior to joining HSBC in October 2021, the staffer was previously a consultant at Westminster lobbying firm Portland Communications. They joined Portland in January 2020 from Labour, where they held a number of senior roles over 15 years, most recently working in the party’s HQ as the head of policy development and engagement.
Labour has accepted many in-kind donations of seconded staff members from banks, lobbyists and consultancies in recent years, but this is the first time it has failed to declare the value of such an arrangement.
Before Starmer took over the party’s leadership in 2020, Labour had banned such secondments over concerns that they amounted to “institutional corruption”, according to James Schneider, who was director of strategic communications for former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
Schneider, now communications director at campaign group Progressive International, told openDemocracy: “If Labour policy is written by people who were, are or expect to be corporate lobbyists in the future, it will represent those corporate interests, not its members, unions or the public.
“In this way, the revolving door between corporate lobbying and Westminster is a form of legalised corruption that insulates the rich and powerful from democratic demands.”
He added: “With this seedy revolving door fully reinstated in Labour HQ, it’s no surprise that the party is busy rejecting policies that would benefit the many not the few.”
Political parties complete quarterly returns detailing all their donations received, with Electoral Commission rules stipulating that in-kind donations of staff time must be declared in the quarter that the arrangement began.
When openDemocracy contacted Labour about this story, the party said it had declared the donation and it would be published in the next set of returns, which relate to quarter four of 2023.
Sir Alistair Graham, who chaired the Committee on Standards in Public Life between 2004 and 2007, told openDemocracy “the Electoral Commission should be looking at this”.
Graham continued: “In the run-up to a general election when the leader of the Labour Party has stressed how he wants to demonstrate that the party will have the highest ethical standards of any government, it is absolutely crucial that they are seen to follow the rules.
“If the bank is facilitating the secondment then it is a donation which should be declared to the Electoral Commission, and the member of parliament who is supervising this secondment should really have declared it on the MPs’ register of interests.
“They’ve now got as their [chief of staff] Sue Gray, who used to be in charge of ethical standards in the Cabinet Office, so she should be overseeing that the rules are abided with and there’s full disclosure to the Electoral Commission.”
Last week openDemocracy revealed that Labour has accepted cash and in-kind donations worth £2m from banks, financiers and firms linked to the City of London since 2022.
Natwest and the lobbying firm Lowick seconded members of staff to Reynolds’ office in 2022 while he was the shadow City minister, and Reynolds’ successor in the role, Tulip Siddiq, currently has a financial services specialist seconded to her office from lobbying firm Global Counsel.
Tom Brake, director of democratic standards campaign organisation Unlock Democracy, said: “Any party receiving multi-million-pound donations from a particular industry, whether it is banking or building, has to be hyper-vigilant both about the transparency of any donations and the risk that that sector is unduly influencing Party policy.
“The Electoral Commission needs to examine whether the Labour Party has failed the first test, and the Labour Party needs to prove how it has avoided falling foul of the second.”
A HSBC spokesperson said “We are apolitical. We work with different political parties to advocate for our customers and build their understanding of the issues facing financial services. We have constructive conversations with both the government and the opposition in the UK.”
Labour declined to offer a comment or provide further details about the arrangement.
Up to 8 million people across the United Kingdom are either incorrectly registered to vote or missing completely, according to research published today by the Electoral Commission, with young people, private renters and those who have recently moved house most affected.
The sheer number of people denied a right to vote thanks to an ‘outdated registration system’, would be equivalent in number to more than 100 UK Parliament constituencies.
The Commission is calling for urgent reforms to electoral registration rules, including the passing of legislation ‘to create clear legal gateways for government departments and public bodies to share data on potentially eligible voters with electoral administrators’. The Commission says that this would enable electoral registration officers to register voters directly, or to send them invitations to register.
Downing Street chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, in Downing Street, central London, ahead of the visit today of President Zelensky, October 10, 2024
