Starmer advisers briefed on ‘indefensible’ probe into journalists, documents show

Newly released documents confirm that Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s senior advisers, including former chief of staff Morgan McSweeney, were briefed on an investigation into journalists writing critical articles about the Labour Together thinktank. The disclosure has intensified scrutiny over the governance of the organisation, now renamed ThinkLabour, and raised questions regarding the Prime Minister’s awareness of the affair, which is currently under review by the Cabinet Office’s propriety and ethics team.

The investigation was commissioned in 2023 by Josh Simons, then director of Labour Together and subsequently a minister, amid suspicions that sensitive materials had been hacked. Simons engaged US-owned public relations firm Apco Worldwide to examine the background and motivations of reporters from the Guardian, Sunday Times, and Declassified UK. Internal reports prepared by Apco, which was paid more than £30,000, characterised the journalists’ work as destabilising to the UK and aligned with Russian strategic foreign policy objectives.

Email correspondence obtained through a subject access request by journalist Paul Holden shows that Simons updated McSweeney and Paul Ovenden, Starmer’s director of political strategy at the time, on the progress of the probe. In a message dated January 14, 2024, Simons indicated that Apco’s senior director Tom Harper would deliver a report on Holden and proposed a meeting to discuss the findings. It is understood that McSweeney was aware of the commissioning of the report and approved of it, although the material presented at the meeting was heavily redacted to obscure the identities of the journalists.

The final Apco report included invasive claims regarding the personal lives and faith of Sunday Times journalist Gabriel Pogrund. Holden, whose research formed the basis of the Sunday Times investigation, described the probe as an appalling attack on public interest investigative journalism. He argued that the documents demonstrate the investigation was a joint project involving Labour Together, Apco, and the highest levels of the Labour party, and has called for a full parliamentary inquiry.

Simons resigned as a minister in February after details of the investigation emerged, stating he was surprised by the scope of Apco’s work. He has since stepped down as an MP to trigger a byelection. Labour Together’s current chief executive, Alison Phillips, described the investigation as indefensible and expressed shock at the firm’s conduct. Starmer’s office has denied that the Prime Minister was aware of the investigation or its findings.