Labour Together made up Russia conspiracy theory against British journalists to bring them down

Sir Keir Starmer has been involved in several major scandals that each would bring him down in a sane country — Mandelson/Epstein, Palantir contracts, Palestine Action proscription, local elections postponement — and several other scandals involving freebies, cronyism, policy U-turns, and resignations that I won’t have time to go into. Given we are just 18 months into Starmer’s premiership, this must be some sort of scandal record, yet the prime minister is clinging to power by his fingertips.

Much of the scandal revolves around Labour Together, the lobby group that put Starmer into 10 Downing Street. Labour Together has strong ties to the Epstein class and the Israeli lobby, and has been in trouble for failing to declare over £730,000 of donations. It was co-founded by Morgan McSweeney who just resigned in disgrace over the Mandelson appointment.

The government’s ties to the Epstein class are horrific enough, but Labour Together has somehow made things worse with a staggering assault on journalism. Starmer’s team have been going after alternative media for some time, but they made the mistake of going after the corporate media and now they might be in serious trouble. They are facing calls for an inquiry that could prove devastating.

In 2023, Labour Together funded a £36,000 probe into the journalists who were investigating their finances — that would be the dark money I highlighted above. The probe, codenamed “Operation Cannon”, was conducted by APCO Worldwide and targeted Sunday Times reporters Gabriel Pogrund and Harry Yorke, who were classed as “persons of significant interest”.

The report focused on the “sourcing, funding and origins” of a November 2023 Sunday Times story on Labour Together’s undeclared donations (as well as other journalistic work). However, it delved into their Jewish faith, family backgrounds, and ideological stances. Claims about their relationships, upbringings, and motivations were circulated among Labour Together figures, including Morgan McSweeney and Josh Simons.

The aim was to make any journalist delving into Labour Together appear untrustworthy and cast doubt on their reporting. In other words, Labour Together was attacking the reputations of journalists to hide the truth. The spying itself would be bad enough, but here is where it gets worse: they were fabricating a scandal against the journalists involving Russia.

Presumably buoyed by their successful antisemitism smears against the left, Labour Together thought they could get away with Russiagate smears against their critics. We truly might be looking at the most dishonest government we’ve ever seen, and coming so soon after the Johnson government too.

A McCarthyite 58-page dossier was produced by former journalist Tom Harper at APCO. As well as the above-named journalists, it covered Henry Dyer from the Guardian, John McEvoy from Declassified UK, Kit Klarenberg from The Grayzone, Paul Holden — an independent journalist, and Matt Taibbi — another independent journalist.

The dossier claimed details from the Sunday Times story likely came from a cyberattack on the Electoral Commission, which was attributed to Russian actors. It seems they were suggesting facts don’t count if they’re uncovered by Russia, but the Russia claim wasn’t even true!

The implication was that Yorke and Pogrund were acting on behalf of the Russian state to destabilise the UK. Laughably, they cited Pogrund’s reporting on the royal family as further evidence of this destabilising. It’s worth emphasising there was nothing in the dossier to substantiate this stuff — it was a work of pure fiction. Remember this, next time they accuse someone of fake news.

There is a particular irony that the government accuses its critics of being conspiracy theorists, but here was APCO inventing a conspiracy theory against journalists. It even submitted that conspiracy theory to the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre, presumably to continue keeping tabs on these journalists. This invokes memories of Paul Mason’s emails with British intelligence that included journalists/figures in his “pro-Putin infosphere”. It is abundantly clear that if you criticise the government, you are being watched.

What makes the Labour Together spygate scandal particularly egregious is the cronyism. Paul Ovenden (Starmer’s former director of strategy who resigned over separate ethics violations) is married to Kate Forrester who was a director at APCO Worldwide during the investigation. Are we really to believe the cronyism was kept completely separate from Starmer?

Starmer would be nowhere without Labour Together, yet he is claiming that he had no idea what was going on! If we were to take that at face value, his lack of leadership should itself be enough to force his resignation, but Starmer is positioning himself as the man to drain the swamp. It’s ludicrous.

When Morgan McSweeney took charge of Labour Together in 2017, he drew up a plan which involved dividing Labour members into three groups: Ideologues (solid left-wing Corbyn supporters), Instrumentalists (pragmatists focused on winning elections), and Idealists (middle-ground voters swayed by progressive policies but open to moderation).

McSweeney decided Labour Together’s candidate must appeal to all instrumentalists and one-third of idealists in order to become leader. The candidate had to be someone who had served under Corbyn so they could avoid alienating the left (at least initially). Starmer was the perfect choice — his lack of charisma and political experience were not major factors, and his lack of integrity was a major plus! He was someone they could mould.

McSweeney used Labour Together as a vehicle to undermine Corbyn, sharing his three-year plan to seize control of the party with senior Labour figures. Starmer avoided the dirty work so he could position himself as a man of integrity and unity, so he could look prime ministerial.

Labour Together was the incubator for Labour’s 2024 manifesto that I don’t think has a single policy left intact. When Starmer won the Labour leadership, he put prominent Labour Together figures into important roles. These figures have been referred to as his praetorian guard: Morgan McSweeney, Josh Simons, Rachel Reeves, Wes Streeting, Steve Reed, Bridget Phillipson, Shabana Mahmood, Lucy Powell, Lisa Nandy, Jonathan Ashworth, Alison Phillips, Deborah Mattinson, and Stuart Ingham.

Josh Simons is a name that stands out because he replaced McSweeney as director of Labour Together until 2024 and commissioned the dossier on the journalists. He is now the MP for Makerfield and a Cabinet Office minister, but is facing calls for suspension over ethics probes. Given Starmer surrounded himself with Labour Together figures, he is clearly not the man to drain the swamp that he filled.

Let’s not forget all of this is emerging at a time when Labour has just sacked its chief adviser and ambassador to the US over ties to a paedophile ring. Peter Mandelson faces a criminal investigation for “misconduct in public office” and calls for an FCA insider-dealing investigation, regarding confidential info passed to Epstein while serving as business secretary.

As if that wasn’t enough, Starmer has been forced to drop antidemocratic plans to postpone local elections to avoid a Labour wipe out. It has been labelled Starmer’s 14th major U-turn, but honestly, I can’t be bothered to count. Labour will pay the legal costs of Reform UK, after U-turning days before a court case it would have lost. Another court defeat coming so soon after the Palestine Action defeat would surely have spelt the end of Starmer.

We are reaching the point of scandal overload where there is so much going on that the public can’t digest it all. Perhaps Starmer is taking a leaf out of Trump’s book. Don’t worry though, he has come up with a policy to turn things around: he is going to force you to scan your face to use VPNs. That’s what you want from this government, right?

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