That the British Prime Minister’s closest aides were aware of the work of the disgraced Labour Together media suppression organisation “has raised questions” about what he himself knew, a report claims.
Globalist-left pressure group Labour Together, which claims to have changed its ways and has recently rebranded and as ThinkLabour after a series of scandals, briefed Sir Keir Starmer’s closest colleagues on its activities, it is now claimed. It is reported by The Guardian that Morgan McSweeney, who was appointed chief of staff after Starmer became Prime Minister, and Starmer’s director of strategy Paul Ovenden were both looped in on a project to allegedly investigate and discredit journalists unfriendly to centre-left globalism.
Labour Together, which earlier reports note had used secret donations to create fake campaign groups to attack and ‘kill‘ “non-conformist media and free speech”, including left-wing outlets unaligned with the Starmer-McSweeney leadership takeover, and right-wing pro-Brexit media including Breitbart News, had commissioned an external company to investigate critical journalists. U.S.-based firm Apco Worldwide was paid “more than £30,000” in 2023 to investigate “the background and motivations of the journalists” who had looked into Labour Together and discovered its intentionally obscured donations, labelling the journalists “significant persons of interest”.
The chilling, anti-press freedom internal report that was created for Labour Together by Apco accused journalists of “destabilising to the UK and also in the interests of Russia’s strategic foreign policy objectives” and of being part of a network “which disseminates pro-Russian propaganda”. Illustrating the political chauvinism of the Labour’s secret freelance intelligence agency, it appears the test for whether journalists destabilise the country or not is whether they are against the Keir Starmer-led project to remake the Labour party after the Jeremy Corbyn era, and the report accused them of a “coordinated effort to discredit Starmer”.
Perhaps most seriously of all, once this narrative of pro-Russian journalists working at outlets including The Guardian and The Times had been constructed, the group handed its secret police-like dossiers of allegations including of benefitting from Russian hacking of Whitehall computers to the British government’s actual intelligence services, a transparent bid to use the security services of the state to silence political opponents with what are said to have transpired to be fake allegations.
The report cites the response of Paul Holden, one of the journalists targeted in this way, who said of the new revelations: “These documents now show that the deeply invasive investigation into me, my family, colleagues and associates was, in effect, a joint project on the part of Labour Together, Apco and the highest levels of the Labour party… This was an appalling attack on public interest investigative journalism.”
Labour Together was founded by Morgan McSweeney, who as chief of staff to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer was called “the most powerful unelected official in British politics”. Per the new claims, he and others were personally looped in on emails regarding this private spying and denouncement work.
McSweeney quit his job at the top of the government this February as he attempted to take the heat off Prime Minister Starmer over the Peter Mandelson – Jeffrey Epstein vetting scandal. He subsequently appeared before a Parliamentary committee investigating the debacle, and attempted to exculpate himself in the matter by passing the blame onto others.
Former Labour Together director Josh Simons was back in the news this week after he resigned from Parliament, triggering a by-election to allow Labour leadership challenger Andy Burnham to run for his seat. As previously reported, he had led Labour Together during the period it ordered the Apco investigation into opposition journalists. The Guardian states he explained away the scope of Apco’s spy agency-like snooping and smear-job by stating the organisation had exceeded its brief and done work it had never been asked to, leaving him “surprised and shocked”.
The report stated of the revelations that “McSweeney declined to comment on the revelation, but the disclosure has raised questions about Starmer’s own knowledge about the affair”.
Labour Together has newly rebranded itself as ThinkLabour and its new director is the former editor of a British left-wing tabloid, Alison Phillips. Writing of the rebrand last week, Phillips boasted that the organisation had previously “played a critical role in helping Labour win the last election” but acknowledged its sword-and-shield-type activities had “caused controversy”.
While claiming to be “shocked” by those, Phillips made clear the core mission of the body hadn’t changed. She wrote: “Our country faces significant challenges, while Labour itself is in peril. Dangerous populism is rampant, from both right and left… We are not here as a passive policy unit.”
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