Starmer challenged over role in Labour’s £36,000 investigation into journalists
Labour Together's investigation saw the group pay a public affairs firm to look into the “backgrounds and motivations” of journalists researching the sources of its funding
Sir Keir Starmer has been challenged by his own MPs to prove he had no involvement in a Labour smear campaign against journalists.
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The Prime Minister is facing questions about whether he was aware of Labour Together's investigation, which saw the group pay a public affairs firm to look into the “backgrounds and motivations” of journalists researching the sources of its funding.
Labour Together, which was previously run by Morgan McSweeney, helped Sir Keir become party leader. Their subsequent report, commissioned by a now Cabinet Office minister in November 2023, falsely suggested the journalists were part of a Russian conspiracy.
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Senior Labour figures - including advisers, a branch of GCHQ and current members of the PM's top team - were given the findings.
Downing Street sources have stressed there was no reason for Sir Keir to have known about the document as he was not in charge of Labour Together.
But Labour backbenchers have joined calls from Reform and the SNP for Starmer to reveal how much he knew about the investigation and when.
One said: "The sad truth is, if he didn’t know, then one has to question his ability and his grasp of reality. Only a complete clown would not know what was happening.
"The most plausible explanation is that he knew the broad outline of what was happening but chose, for plausible deniability, to not know about the details."
Mr McSweeney left No.10 earlier this month after recommending Lord Mandelson as the US ambassador to Sir Keir.
Discussing the former Starmer aide, the backbencher said: "He knew what Morgan McSweeney and his core team were, just as he knew what Peter Mandelson was and [his] reputation.
"So did he know the detail? Probably not. He’s not a detail person. But in that deliberate grey area he obviously encouraged, he knew the gist of what would be happening to those that got in the way of the plan to get them into No 10. So complicit, yes."
Nadhim Zahawi, the former Tory chancellor who has defected to Reform UK, was the first MP to put pressure on Starmer to reveal all about the investigation.
Mr Zahawi said: “This is a huge story. If this was any other party, the calls for an investigation would be deafening. We need to know who knew about this inside Labour. Did the PM know?”
MPs are also calling for Josh Simons, the former chief executive of Labour Together who subsequently became a Cabinet Office minister, to be investigated for commissioning the 48-page report.
Mr Simons succeeded Mr McSweeney as the chief executive of Labour Together, a group which helped oppose Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the party and supported Sir Keir’s push to take over in 2020.
Mr McSweeney left the organisation to become Sir Keir’s chief of staff, a role he quit earlier this month.
The Electoral Commission found the group had breached 20 campaign finance laws, and fined it in 2021.
Labour Together paid Apco, a US public affairs firm, £36,000 to compile the report after The Sunday Times revealed that it had failed to declare £730,000 of donations between 2017 and 2020.
Apco’s report, codenamed Operation Cannon, was completed in January 2024 included claims about Gabriel Pogrund, The Sunday Times Whitehall editor, and Harry Yorke, its deputy political editor, who were both named as “persons of significant interest”.
The Sunday Times said there were almost 10 pages of “deeply personal and fake claims” about Mr Pogrund, including about his upbringing and his personal and professional relationships.
The report said Mr Pogrund’s reporting on the Royal Family "could be seen as destabilising to the UK and also in the interests of Russia’s strategic foreign policy objectives”.
It also claimed the emails which backed up another published story could have come from a suspected Kremlin hack of the Electoral Commission.
“The likeliest culprit is the Russian state, or proxies of the Russian state,” it stated.
Mr Pogrund is sanctioned by Russia, which included him on a no-travel list after the invasion of Ukraine.
Mr Simons told The Sunday Times: “I was surprised and shocked to read the report extended beyond the contract by including unnecessary information on Gabriel Pogrund.
“I asked for this information to be removed before passing the report to GCHQ. No other British journalists were investigated in any document I or Labour Together ever received.”