Morgan McSweeney had a problem. It was December 2017 and Labour Together – the secretive group of MPs and activists he had assembled to oppose Jeremy Corbyn and seize back control of Labour – had made a major breakthrough.
After a series of surreptitious meetings with senior grandees, the cheque books of the party’s biggest donors were about to be opened.
Martin Taylor – the multi-millionaire who had made his fortune buying up assets in the former Soviet Union, and had already begun funding the group – gave his biggest contribution to date – £50,000.
Several similar donations were set to follow. Lord Myners, the former Rothschild director, donated £25,000. Trevor Chinn, the high-profile Jewish entrepreneur and philanthropist, gave the first of several gifts of £12,500.
In total, over the next three years over £730,000 was raised.
But if Jeremy Corbyn and his allies became aware of the sudden influx of cash it would raise alarm bells. And McSweeney could not afford that.
In 2019, Morgan McSweeney approached Keir Starmer (pictured together in 2025) and offered to throw his political muscle behind him if he made a bid to replace Jeremy Corbyn after the expected defeat in the upcoming general election
Because the whole premise of Labour Together was that it was an entirely innocent, rather dull, think-tank.
As McSweeney had explained when he created the organisation, its true purpose – the defenestration of Corbynism – had to be hidden from the world in general, and the vengeful hard-Left party leadership in particular.
So something strange happened. Until 2017 Labour Together had been diligently reporting its relatively modest income to the Electoral Commission, as required by electoral law. And then suddenly the reporting stopped.
From December 2017 until late 2020, no new donations were declared. Save for one in August 2018 of £12,500 from Chinn.
Meanwhile, Labour Together went from strength to strength. With the organisation’s support, Labour moderates began to retake control of the party’s structures.
In 2019, McSweeney approached Keir Starmer, and offered to throw his political muscle behind him if he made a bid to replace Corbyn after the expected defeat in the upcoming general election.
Labour Together’s work did not end with Corbyn’s defeat and Starmer’s election as Labour leader. It retains huge influence within the party and is still seen as the primary vehicle through which McSweeney exerts his influence
And in 2020, despite initially claiming to be neutral in the contest to replace Corbyn, Labour Together successfully guided Starmer to the leadership. Its covert mission was complete. And then the trouble started.
McSweeney moved over to become Starmer’s chief of staff, and was replaced at Labour Together by Hannah O’Rourke, a former adviser to Ed Miliband.
O’Rourke quickly realised that for almost three years no donations had been filed, and immediately contacted the Electoral Commission, which opened an investigation that led to the organisation being fined £14,250.
The official line that Labour Together furnished for the Commission was that the failure to report the donations had been an innocent administrative blunder.
‘The administrative oversight that led to this fine was entirely unintentional,’ a spokesman claimed.
But as The Mail on Sunday reports today, the Tories say they have obtained private legal advice which points to a deliberate attempt to mislead the Commission to a degree which could potentially lead to criminal liability.
They say that the advice given to McSweeney by lawyer Gerald Shamash in 2021 contradicts Labour Together’s claim the mistakes were due to ‘human error and administrative oversight’ and that it had been as ‘open and transparent’ as possible.
Tory chairman Kevin Hollinrake has written to the Electoral Commission to argue that the advice, which appeared to have been ‘passed from within the Labour Party to outside sources’, revealed discussion about how to handle the Commission – and admitted that it would not be easy for Labour Together given how clear the law was that the donation should have been declared.
Hollinrake said McSweeney was advised Labour Together should claim an administration error, despite the Tory chairman thinking the real reason was to protect donors’ identities and avoid raising the Commission’s suspicions.
This, Hollinrake argues, amounts to sufficient new information ‘to initiate a formal inquiry and then to refer the incident to the police’ relating to ‘the breach of political finance laws’.
Elements of this saga may seem arcane and historical. But given the current crisis enveloping Keir Starmer’s Government, and the serious questions being raised about McSweeney’s conduct – especially in relation to the Mandelson/Epstein scandal – they are potentially explosive.
First, Starmer and McSweeney have put probity in public office at the heart of their political messaging strategy. Indeed, a Bill is currently going through Parliament that specifically aims to increase the penalties for breaching the law as it relates to electoral funding.
Labour Together’s network and infrastructure is currently being deployed in support of Bridget Phillipson’s deputy leadership campaign, which, as one ally of her rival Lucy Powell explained, puts Phillipson at a significant advantage
Secondly, Labour Together’s work did not end with Corbyn’s defeat and Starmer’s election.
It retains huge influence within the Labour Party and is still seen as the primary vehicle through which McSweeney exerts his influence.
Its network and infrastructure is currently being deployed in support of Bridget Phillipson’s deputy leadership campaign, which, as one ally of her rival Lucy Powell explained to me, puts Phillipson at a significant advantage.
‘They’re just plugging in to the Labour Together network. We’re having to build ours from scratch.’
And it’s significant for another reason. Labour’s opponents believe the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom might have been propelled into office via an illegal slush fund.
‘Serious questions now arise of whether unlawful funds were used to propel Starmer into the Labour leadership’, Hollinrake charged yesterday.
Keir Starmer hoped the stench of sleaze and scandal enveloping his administration would begin to dissipate following the successful state visit of Donald Trump. McSweeneyGate shows that those hopes are set to be dashed.
