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It seems the mask is slipping.
The Conservatives have called for an inquiry after leaked information suggested that Keir Starmer failed to declare “in kind” support from Labour Together – the think tank run at the time by Morgan McSweeney, who now just happens to be Starmer’s current chief of staff.
Tory chairman Kevin Hollinrake claimed the leaked evidence suggests Starmer’s 2020 leadership campaign benefitted from Labour Together polling, messaging and speechwriting – support that would normally need to be declared. It wasn’t.
Starmer’s camp insists his campaign took no such help – so there was no need for any declaration. Labour sources say there were “no monetary or in kind donations”. Ministers have waved the claim away as “mudslinging”.
But the smell won’t go away – not least because Labour Together has already been fined more than £14,000 for breaking electoral rules over the way it handled donations worth nearly three-quarters of a million pounds.
Reports also suggest leaked emails show McSweeney himself tried to mislead the Electoral Commission.
That’s the current scandal. But the deeper story seems to be much worse.
The cabal behind the rise of Starmer
Labour Together was created by pro-Israel donor Trevor Chinn, hedge funder Martin Taylor and – yes – Morgan McSweeney. Their aim was to destroy Jeremy Corbyn’s movement and ensure Labour’s left wing could never again take the leadership. Some believe the project to have been a bid to preserve the neoliberal ‘status quo’.
This was not a policy debate; these people were not afraid that Corbyn would lose – they feared he might win.
Their own SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunites and Threats) analysis made that explicit: the “threat” to Labour Together at the time was a Labour government.
McSweeney told colleagues his mission was “to move the Labour Party from the hard left when JC steps down as leader”.
That claim indicated that either McSweeney was delusional, or he was trying to mislead others with his words. The most that could be said about Corbyn’s programme was that it was centre-left, modelled on successful Scandinavian social democracies.
But fact was never the point.
How they worked
The Observer’s Anushka Asthana has laid out the tactics: Labour Together bankrolled an office in Vauxhall to dig up anti-Semitism cases on left-wing Facebook groups. Posts – some genuinely vile, some only tenuously linked to this ideology – were farmed out to journalists.
The aim was not to root out racism, but to shame and isolate left activists and to paint the entire Corbyn project as toxic.
Then Labour Together widened the attack. Through “Stop Funding Fake News” – a campaign linked to the Centre for Countering Digital Hate – they targeted alternative news websites. Vox Political, The Canary and others were vilified and advertisers hounded away.
Yes – This Writer was a victim of such an attack. In early May 2017, my membership of the Labour Party was suspended due to a – false – claim of anti-Semitism. I found out when a reporter from the Western Mail (a national newspaper in Wales) telephoned me to ask how I responded to the suspension and the allegation.
This was followed with an article in The Sunday Times in February 2018, after its reporter Gabriel Pogrund contacted me by email, seeking my response to allegations. I published that response on This Site. When the article was published, it did not accurately reflect what I had said (the words on which the allegations were based had been twisted by my accusers, and Pogrund did not accurately report my response).
The Sunday Times published a lengthy apology on January 13, 2019 (as I reported here) but by then the damage to my reputation had been done.
So from my point of view, it seems that this organisation – Labour Together – may be a propaganda operation dealing in lies; working to defame the good names of people like myself who act in good faith.
My opinion is that nobody associated with this organisation should be in a position of power in a UK political party, let alone leader – and absolutely not prime minister of the country.
Meanwhile, establishment outlets like The Guardian were schmoozed with dinners featuring McSweeney, Lisa Nandy, Shabana Mahmood – and a rising star named Keir Starmer.
Undermining Labour’s election chances
It went further. When seven MPs split to form Change UK in 2019, Labour Together secretly circulated documents to donors behind the leadership’s back.
They claimed Labour was in “political and moral crisis”, smeared the left as a “hard left” threat, and tried to divert funds away from Corbyn’s Labour.
In other words, Labour Together actively campaigned to stop Labour winning under Corbyn. It was sabotage – of their own party.
The proof piles up
We’ve seen the Forde Report. We’ve seen the leaked Labour dossier. Both show that insiders undermined Corbyn. The new revelations about Labour Together – if accurate – corroborate it all.
Now, the people behind Labour Together – led by McSweeney – run the Labour Party under Starmer. And when questions are raised about undeclared support in his leadership campaign, they expect us to take their word that everything was “properly declared”.
Integrity, honesty and transparency? Don’t make me laugh.
The evidence suggests that Starmer is a figurehead for a cabal that plotted to destroy the UK’s best chance of real democratic socialism in decades.
I am shocked to find myself supporting Tory calls for an investigation by Parliament’s standards commissioner. It may be a clear case of the pot calling the kettle black (Tory corruption over the same period of time was off the scale, in my opinion) but that does not mean the defamation of innocent people, the disruption of their lives and the destruction of their livelihoods should be tolerated – certainly not to put a creature who has shown such contempt for facts and democracy as Keir Starmer in 10 Downing Street.
This cannot be brushed aside as ‘mudslinging’.
It shouldn’t be left to Labour members.
We must all demand answers – and demand that anybody who sabotaged democracy is held to account.
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The cabal: did Keir Starmer take backhanders from the Corbyn backstabbers who defamed Vox Political?
Share this post:
It seems the mask is slipping.
The Conservatives have called for an inquiry after leaked information suggested that Keir Starmer failed to declare “in kind” support from Labour Together – the think tank run at the time by Morgan McSweeney, who now just happens to be Starmer’s current chief of staff.
Tory chairman Kevin Hollinrake claimed the leaked evidence suggests Starmer’s 2020 leadership campaign benefitted from Labour Together polling, messaging and speechwriting – support that would normally need to be declared. It wasn’t.
Starmer’s camp insists his campaign took no such help – so there was no need for any declaration. Labour sources say there were “no monetary or in kind donations”. Ministers have waved the claim away as “mudslinging”.
But the smell won’t go away – not least because Labour Together has already been fined more than £14,000 for breaking electoral rules over the way it handled donations worth nearly three-quarters of a million pounds.
Reports also suggest leaked emails show McSweeney himself tried to mislead the Electoral Commission.
That’s the current scandal. But the deeper story seems to be much worse.
The cabal behind the rise of Starmer
Labour Together was created by pro-Israel donor Trevor Chinn, hedge funder Martin Taylor and – yes – Morgan McSweeney. Their aim was to destroy Jeremy Corbyn’s movement and ensure Labour’s left wing could never again take the leadership. Some believe the project to have been a bid to preserve the neoliberal ‘status quo’.
This was not a policy debate; these people were not afraid that Corbyn would lose – they feared he might win.
Their own SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunites and Threats) analysis made that explicit: the “threat” to Labour Together at the time was a Labour government.
McSweeney told colleagues his mission was “to move the Labour Party from the hard left when JC steps down as leader”.
That claim indicated that either McSweeney was delusional, or he was trying to mislead others with his words. The most that could be said about Corbyn’s programme was that it was centre-left, modelled on successful Scandinavian social democracies.
But fact was never the point.
How they worked
The Observer’s Anushka Asthana has laid out the tactics: Labour Together bankrolled an office in Vauxhall to dig up anti-Semitism cases on left-wing Facebook groups. Posts – some genuinely vile, some only tenuously linked to this ideology – were farmed out to journalists.
The aim was not to root out racism, but to shame and isolate left activists and to paint the entire Corbyn project as toxic.
Then Labour Together widened the attack. Through “Stop Funding Fake News” – a campaign linked to the Centre for Countering Digital Hate – they targeted alternative news websites. Vox Political, The Canary and others were vilified and advertisers hounded away.
Yes – This Writer was a victim of such an attack. In early May 2017, my membership of the Labour Party was suspended due to a – false – claim of anti-Semitism. I found out when a reporter from the Western Mail (a national newspaper in Wales) telephoned me to ask how I responded to the suspension and the allegation.
This was followed with an article in The Sunday Times in February 2018, after its reporter Gabriel Pogrund contacted me by email, seeking my response to allegations. I published that response on This Site. When the article was published, it did not accurately reflect what I had said (the words on which the allegations were based had been twisted by my accusers, and Pogrund did not accurately report my response).
The Sunday Times published a lengthy apology on January 13, 2019 (as I reported here) but by then the damage to my reputation had been done.
So from my point of view, it seems that this organisation – Labour Together – may be a propaganda operation dealing in lies; working to defame the good names of people like myself who act in good faith.
My opinion is that nobody associated with this organisation should be in a position of power in a UK political party, let alone leader – and absolutely not prime minister of the country.
Meanwhile, establishment outlets like The Guardian were schmoozed with dinners featuring McSweeney, Lisa Nandy, Shabana Mahmood – and a rising star named Keir Starmer.
Undermining Labour’s election chances
It went further. When seven MPs split to form Change UK in 2019, Labour Together secretly circulated documents to donors behind the leadership’s back.
They claimed Labour was in “political and moral crisis”, smeared the left as a “hard left” threat, and tried to divert funds away from Corbyn’s Labour.
In other words, Labour Together actively campaigned to stop Labour winning under Corbyn. It was sabotage – of their own party.
The proof piles up
We’ve seen the Forde Report. We’ve seen the leaked Labour dossier. Both show that insiders undermined Corbyn. The new revelations about Labour Together – if accurate – corroborate it all.
Now, the people behind Labour Together – led by McSweeney – run the Labour Party under Starmer. And when questions are raised about undeclared support in his leadership campaign, they expect us to take their word that everything was “properly declared”.
Integrity, honesty and transparency? Don’t make me laugh.
The evidence suggests that Starmer is a figurehead for a cabal that plotted to destroy the UK’s best chance of real democratic socialism in decades.
I am shocked to find myself supporting Tory calls for an investigation by Parliament’s standards commissioner. It may be a clear case of the pot calling the kettle black (Tory corruption over the same period of time was off the scale, in my opinion) but that does not mean the defamation of innocent people, the disruption of their lives and the destruction of their livelihoods should be tolerated – certainly not to put a creature who has shown such contempt for facts and democracy as Keir Starmer in 10 Downing Street.
This cannot be brushed aside as ‘mudslinging’.
It shouldn’t be left to Labour members.
We must all demand answers – and demand that anybody who sabotaged democracy is held to account.
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