Morgan McSweeney

Peter Oborne: What Morgan McSweeney did in the shadows is set to haunt Starmer’s Labour

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Discussing a forthcoming book by investigative journalist Paul Holden titled The Fraud: Keir Starmer, Morgan McSweeney and the Crisis of British Democracy.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/mcsweeney-did-in-shadows-haunt-starmer-labour

Downing Street’s chief of staff Morgan McSweeney, who was the director of the Labour Together think tank, undated image (PA)

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Holden’s book will contain allegations of irregularities concerning what he calls “a secret unlawful fund” and more than £700,000 of hidden donations to a think tank run by McSweeney.

These revelations are potentially dangerous for McSweeney. Far more importantly, they may impact viscerally on Starmer himself.

This is because, according to Holden, the purpose of McSweeney’s think tank, misleadingly called Labour Together, was to supercharge Starmer’s path to Downing Street.

Once Starmer was installed in No 10 he rewarded McSweeney by making him Downing Street chief of staff.

The Tory Party is now claiming that new evidence has come to light that “raises the question of whether a criminal offence has been committed”. 

In a letter to the Electoral Commission, Tory chairman Kevin Hollinrake makes the devastating allegation that the “funds were used by Labour Together in a sustained political campaign to bring down Jeremy Corbyn and secure the election of Keir Starmer as leader of the Labour Party”. 

This is especially significant because official records show Starmer did not declare any support from the group in the official Commons register. 

Under the Commons code of conduct, MPs are required to declare support worth more than £1,500 designed to help their “candidacy at an election for parliamentary or non-parliamentary office”.

To put the charges made into plain English, the Tories are in effect accusing McSweeney of arranging a secret slush fund to launch Starmer into Downing Street.  

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Original article at https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/mcsweeney-did-in-shadows-haunt-starmer-labour

Continue ReadingPeter Oborne: What Morgan McSweeney did in the shadows is set to haunt Starmer’s Labour

Call for police probe into claim PM’s top aide Morgan McSweeney hid £700,000 of donations to boost Keir Starmer’s political career

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Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership all feel a small part of Scunthorpe.
Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership all feel a small part of Scunthorpe.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15118175/Call-police-probe-claim-PMs-aide-Morgan-McSweeney-hid-700-000-donations-boost-Keir-Starmers-political-career.html

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in a letter to the Electoral Commission, Tory chairman Kevin Hollinrake said the party has new information to justify the commission ‘initiating a formal inquiry and then to refer the incident to the police’ relating to ‘the breach of political finance laws’.

Mr Hollinrake said advice from lawyer Gerald Shamash written in 2021, which appeared to have been ‘passed from within the Labour Party to outside sources’, revealed discussion about how to handle the Commission – and admitted it would not be easy to explain Labour Together’s position.

Mr Hollinrake said Mr McSweeney was advised that Labour Together should blame the non-reporting of donations on an administration error. 

But the Tory chairman believed the donations weren’t declared to protect the donors’ identities.

The row comes ahead of the publication next month of The Fraud, by journalist Paul Holden, which will include a detailed account of Mr McSweeney’s role in Labour Together.

The think-tank was a key plank of the drive by Mr McSweeney and his allies – including Lord Mandelson, who was sacked as US ambassador this month over links to paedophile Jeffrey Epstein – to topple Mr Corbyn from the party leadership. 

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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15118175/Call-police-probe-claim-PMs-aide-Morgan-McSweeney-hid-700-000-donations-boost-Keir-Starmers-political-career.html

Continue ReadingCall for police probe into claim PM’s top aide Morgan McSweeney hid £700,000 of donations to boost Keir Starmer’s political career

Morning Star Editorial: Purge of dissenting MPs is a sign of Starmer’s weakness

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/purge-dissenting-mps-sign-starmers-weakness

 Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer during a meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, in Downing Street, London, on his first official visit to Britain, July 17, 2025

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Just 12 per cent of the public approve of the government’s record, a historic low. Current polling shows the great majority of Labour MPs losing their seats at the next election, either to Reform, or to the new left party struggling to be born, or in Scotland and Wales to nationalist parties.

Certainly, at present it is as easy to see the suspended four — and the already-whipless John McDonnell and Apsana Begum who rebelled a year ago against the two-child benefit cap — securing re-election as independents than as candidates of the Starmer regime.

It is certainly hard to see this move breaking resistance to the new austerity agenda going forward. Only successful leaders can hope to get away with this sort of crackdown.

So this latest exercise in authoritarianism speaks only to Starmer’s loss of capacity to advance his right-wing agenda, as well as to his consigliere Morgan McSweeney’s blinkered view that whatever the problem is the answer lies in attacking the left.

But it is also a challenge to the Labour left. Over the last five years it has consistently failed to find the means to arrest the Starmer-McSweeney purge of the left, often for want of the simple virtue of sticking together when under attack.

The response to the latest suspensions has been robust, in words at least. The left has shown it can inflict defeats on the government, reversing specific policy proposals.

But it is now beyond obvious that only a fighting plan to actually oust Starmer himself has any prospect of reversing Labour’s dismal prospects in time to save the next election. They should take every opportunity — and even create them — to express no-confidence in this government of austerity, war and authoritarianism.

Failure to do so will certainly turbocharge the case for the new socialist party being promoted by Zarah Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn. The appeal of that venture rests in part on the perception that Labour is a lost cause.

Starmer’s latest sanctions against dissent tend to make that case. He has flung down the gauntlet — the left in the PLP, the affiliated unions and the membership must pick it up.

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/purge-dissenting-mps-sign-starmers-weakness

Keir Starmer justifies why he has to travel abroad so much
Keir Starmer justifies why he has to travel abroad so much
Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership all feel a small part of Scunthorpe.
Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership all feel a small part of Scunthorpe.

Continue ReadingMorning Star Editorial: Purge of dissenting MPs is a sign of Starmer’s weakness