BREAKING: Starmer's inner circle knew about APCO's Labour Together investigation
New documents show Morgan McSweeney and Paul Ovenden were briefed on PR firm's investigation into journalists as calls for a parliamentary inquiry grow
By Peter Geoghegan and Khadija Sharife
Keir Starmer’s chief of staff and his head of communications were briefed about Labour Together’s controversial investigation into journalists more than two years ago, Democracy for Sale can reveal.
Morgan McSweeney and Paul Ovenden were kept in the loop about APCO’s work for Labour Together. The US PR firm was paid over £30,000 to “investigate the sourcing, funding and origins” of a Sunday Times story in November 2023 about the think tank’s undeclared funding that helped drive Starmer’s leadership victory.
In an email ahead of a proposed meeting with APCO’s Tom Harper in January 2024, Labour Together’s then boss Josh Simons wrote: “Tom will be delivering his report on Paul Holden on Monday. Can we find a time for Tom, Morgan, Paul and me to meet or zoom in HQ sometime after next week?”
The email was sent to McSweeney and Ovenden’s Labour party email addresses. At the time both men were Labour party employees. Six months later, they joined the heart of Starmer’s Downing Street operation.
Labour figures confirmed that a meeting subsequently took place, though it is unclear what was discussed. They said the material presented was heavily redacted. They added that McSweeney and Ovenden knew about the report and approved of it but neither commissioned nor helped write it. Starmer himself was not aware of its existence, they added.
They added that McSweeney and Ovenden took Simons at his word that he believed that there had been a hack of sensitive Labour Together materials. “At the time Josh was concerned about where this stuff had come from and was looking into it,” said one.
Alison Phillips, CEO of ThinkLabour said that she remained “shocked at the work undertaken by APCO in 2023 for Labour Together.”
“It was indefensible and, as a former journalist, I believe it was work that should not have been commissioned or undertaken,” Philips added.
APCO’s subsequent report for Labour Together spuriously suggested that the organisation had been the victim of a Russian hack fed to a “pro-Kremlin network” and cast aspersions on the political and religious background of journalists, including author Paul Holden and the Sunday Times’s Gabriel Pogrund.
Simons, who resigned from the Cabinet Office in February in the wake of the scandal, recently stood down from his Makerfield seat to allow Andy Burnham to run.
Tom Harper, as we reported earlier this month, is no longer with APCO after it emerged that he told a contractor to “get rid of” documents related to the PR firm’s Labour Together work. The think tank rebranded as ThinkLabour in recent weeks.
The Labour party has always maintained that Labour Together was “a separate legal entity”, and that the party had no involvement in APCO’s campaign to discredit journalists who were digging into the think tank’s undeclared funding.
But the revelation that McSweeney and Ovenden were looped into Harper’s work for Labour Together raises more uncomfortable questions for Starmer and Labour about the whole affair.
McSweeney, long seen as Starmer’s right hand man, resigned three months ago, shortly after we first reported on APCO’s work for Labour Together. But the former adviser reportedly has been back in Downing Street in recent days, counselling an embattled Starmer.
Ovenden, who left government last year after explicit text messages about Labour MP Diane Abbott emerged, recently set up a PR company. As we previously reported, Ovenden’s wife Kate Forrester worked for APCO and was on Labour Together’s advisory board at the time APCO was commissioned.
The email between Simons, Harper, McSweeney and Ovenden is part of a trove of documents obtained by Paul Holden, author of The Fraud, through a subject access request to Labour Together and shared with Democracy for Sale.
Email correspondence shows that Harper - a former Sunday Times journalist whose wife, Caroline Wheeler, was that paper’s political editor until earlier this year - subsequently told Simons to submit a report to the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) saying that he suspected Labour Together had been hacked.
“I would emphasise that you are a political organization closely affiliated to the Labour Party and you believe that the hack on your systems is an attempt to interfere with the UK’s political processes by a hostile state actor in the run-up to a general election,” Harper wrote. “That should focus their minds.”
Simons then wrote to the National Cyber Security Centre, saying he believed sensitive personal information had been obtained as a result of a hack of the Electoral Commission.
He suggested that Holden was “part of a far-left network…which disseminates pro-Russian propaganda, including questioning of the Russian attacks on Sergei Skripal”.
And he told the NCSC that he believed the coverage to be part of a “co-ordinated effort to discredit Keir Starmer and Labour ahead of the general election.”
The emails also suggest that Simons shared the NCSC complaint with journalists. In one instance he forwarded his complaint to a journalist at the Guardian. We understand the Guardian journalist was not its political editor, Pippa Crerar. (Crerar subsequently worked on a story about an alleged hack of Labour Together that was not published.)
However, a report commissioned by Labour Together this year - after it commissioned cybersecurity experts - found that Holden’s materials were probably leaked by an individual rather than the result of a hack.
“We have reasonable evidence to believe that the materials were not hacked at Labour Together but leaked by a source at (redacted).”
Paul Holden said the “documents 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, including Morgan McSweeney.”
“It is clear that only a part of this story has yet emerged. There is an urgent need for a full Parliamentary inquiry into the history and conduct of Labour Together.”
A Labour Party Spokesperson said: “The freedom of the press is a cornerstone of our democracy. The Labour Party remains firmly committed to upholding and protecting that freedom, which is vital in ensuring journalists are able to rightly hold public figures to account.
“Any suggestion that the Labour Party had any role in the commissioning of this report would be incorrect. Labour Together have themselves acknowledged that the scope of the work carried out through this report was indefensible.”
Alison Phillips, CEO of ThinkLabour said: “ThinkLabour is a very different organisation today compared to Labour Together then and what was done does not reflect and represent what we stand for and how we operate today under my leadership.”
Simons has previously said that he was “surprised and shocked” by APCO’s report, and claimed that the PR firm had gone beyond the terms of its contract.
Calls for a parliamentary inquiry into Labour Together’s conduct have grown in recent weeks. Earlier this month, Commons speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle told Labour MP John McDonnell that his concerns about APCO’s work for the think tank needed “to be investigated thoroughly”.
The Serious Fraud Office is separately understood to be in receipt of a disclosure concerning APCO’s destruction of documents relating to its work for Labour Together.
Put them in jail.
How many more can’t keep their noses clean?