In the wake of Starmer’s “mistake” over Mandelson’s appointment, the malign influence of Labour Together and the heavy byelection defeat Mike Davis and Frank Hansen say a new leader will be needed if Labour is to survive
It’s no good, Keir Starmer putting the disastrous defeat in the Gorton and Denton byelection down to mid-term protest voting and Green party opportunism. Labour’s vote slumped from over 50% in 2024 to 25.3%. It was the first loss of this safe Labour seat in 100 years.
Starmer and his team, reeling from the sacking of Mandelson and the exposure of the malign machinations of Labour Together, have shown no insight into the reasons for the defeat. On the contrary, Starmer’s letter to MPs blames the Green Party’s “divisive” campaigning, namely seeking the Muslim vote and support from maverick George Galloway.
This retreat into tribalism is part of Labour’s problem, as is the failure to tackle the cost of living crisis and, more widely, the party’s dreadful role in failing to support the people of Gaza against Israeli state genocide and banning Palestine Action (now rolled back in the courts). A U-turn and some humility on these issues may have saved some loss of votes.
Worse still, Labour’s Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is now seeking to play Reform’s game on immigration by seeking to introduce measures that undermine a humanitarian asylum policy and dramatically reduce migrant rights to build a life in this country. Rights to settlement are being changed to mean regular reviews and additional charges. This pulls away security from thousands of Ukrainians, Afghans and other migrants who have fled war zones and persecution and who felt they had protection in the UK. Moreover, restrictions on visas mean universities are facing a slump in overseas students, while the NHS and care services will face deeper staff shortages.
Angela Rayner’s speech at a recent Mainstream event fired a warning shot at the leadership, branding the immigration proposals “un-British” and “breaking the trust” with migrants who had settled in the UK. She also declared the “survival of the Labour Party is at stake” in a barely disguised opening salvo for a leadership challenge. The day before Rayner’s pitch, 400 activists had attended an online “Restore Labour Democracy” rally, chaired by John McDonnell, underlining that time is running out for Labour.
Trade unions should be critical to a revival of Labour’s fortunes. The Employment Rights Act and the repeal of anti-union legislation are worthy of promotion, with more progressive change to come. However, as a range of trade union leaders have said, taking policies from the far right playbook is not the way to go.
In responding to the byelection result, Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “If Labour needed any further wake-up calls, this is clearly one. Labour needs to now ditch the gimmicks and get back to being Labour.
“Workers and families are hurting. We have a cost-of-living crisis largely being ignored and investment in jobs for the here-and-now being blocked by a Treasury that doesn’t seem to understand the basics of what is needed to build Britain.
“Stop listening to your rich mates and start listening to everyday people.” Unite are now planning to reduce its contribution to Labour to around £500,000.
UNISON called on the government to stand up for workers and defend “fundamental values’.
UNISON general secretary Andrea Egan said: “The Greens won for a simple reason. Many traditional Labour supporters, in Manchester and across the country, want to see progressive values robustly defended against the far-right, not gleefully abandoned.
“A Labour government should be standing up for workers, defending migrants and refugees, and taking the fight to Nigel Farage rather than letting him set the agenda.”
The head of the Fire Brigades Union, Steve Wright, says “Labour’s entire strategy of framing politics as it’s us v Reform” is in tatters.
“If the government does not change course immediately, it will face heavy losses in the May elections, and at that point, the political consequences for Keir Starmer will become unavoidable. The game will be up unless there is a decisive shift in direction.”
Starmer also explained to MPs:
“The Greens may have won here (Gorton and Denton), but they simply do not have the resources, the activist base or the local knowledge to replicate this victory across the country.”
The Green Party is now reported to have over 200,000 members. This is getting close to Labour’s membership that has heamouraged in the last 18 months. With its policy of imposing candidates, undermining local member selections, and excluding hundreds of members over Gaza, Labour will continue to lose and fail to attract activists, especially amongst young people. Labour struggled to mobilise members to campaign in Gorton and Denton. The May elections will demand simultaneously much higher levels of grassroots activity in Scotland, Wales and English local elections. The Green Party may not have the financial resources of Labour or Reform, but they have the numbers and enthusiasm. A recent modelling report by the independent data firm Bombe suggests that Labour could be wiped out in the London elections, losing control of over 15 councils of its current 21 boroughs, many to the Green Party. Tony Travers, professor of government at the LSE, said if the modelling was correct, Labour faced a “political earthquake”.
So the message is clear: Labour have to change course and leadership if prospects are to change. This change revolves around three issues: embrace the sort of social and economic policies that will produce some real improvements to people’s lives and demonstrate a commitment to Labour values of social justice, human rights and equality; change the culture in the Labour party from command and control to member empowerment; abandon the divisive approach on immigration and appeasement of Trump on international affairs, particularly Gaza and Iran.
It wouldn’t require a fully-fledged socialist programme, but Starmer could do worse than dust down the ten pledges on which he was elected to the Labour leadership. These included common ownership of rail, mail, water and energy and an end to outsourcing in the NHS, local government and the justice system; increase income tax for the top 5%; abolish universal credit; full voting rights for EU nationals, defence of free movement, an immigration system based on compassion and dignity; no more illegal wars; introduce a Prevention of Military Intervention Act; abolish the House of Lords. Support the abolition of tuition fees. Some of these made it into Labour’s 2024 election manifesto, “Change’. Rail and energy nationalisation got a look in, as did commitments to workers’ rights. Most have been consigned to the dustbin.
On economics, we have a little resembling tax increases on the super-rich or assets. Inflation persists while youth unemployment has risen to nearly a million. Fiscal rules and economic growth are the Chancellor’s go-to phrases, but again they ring hollow when massive investment in infrastructure is needed, funded by borrowing, and a much more progressive taxation, particularly on wealth. Such measures may not halt a drubbing in the May elections but could help turn Labour’s ship around in the medium term.
On the culture of the party, it is important that a thorough clean-up of the Mandelson/Epstein mess is undertaken. It means being willing to fully expose the “boys club” atmosphere that clearly operated among influential operators, including those in Labour Together. The women and girl victims of the Epstein network need to be defended and supported. Labour’s new policy on questions of sex trafficking and reducing violence and abuse needs to take this question on.
So what would an overhaul of the party’s deadening, factional culture involve?
The first thing is that there needs to be a thorough, independent investigation into the way that Labour Together has acted within the party and its impact on the Labour Government. An investigation should look at LT’s influence over policy, and party finances, procedures, candidates and selections . This should cover the period from July 2017 when Morgan McSweeney was appointed LT’s Company Secretary/MD and also encompass LT’s links to Mandelson, its financing and patronage and the serious allegations of dirty tricks, leading to a policy shift to the right and a severe degradation of LP democracy nationally and locally.
Paul Holden’s book “The Fraud” (reviewed in this month’s Chartist) contains serious allegations about LT’s manipulative behaviour under McSweeney. Some of the main concerns are well known such as influence over the appointment of Mandelson as Ambassador to the US, LT’s use of donations – of which over £730,000 were unlawfully not declared to the Electoral Commission, leading to LT being fined, and the appointment of consultants (the ACPO contract) to vet, and it seems discredit and smear journalists, investigating LT’s activities. The report contained false claims of Russian involvement in providing hacked information used by journalists. These claims were then raised with the security services by LT’s Josh Simons as a national security issue and were ignored as baseless.
Now that McSweeney and Simons have resigned it appears that Labour Together believe that the scandal can be resolved by its own internal investigations Sally Morgan – Labour Peer and former Blair advisor – who is Chair of LT’s board, said that the organisation had reviewed APCO’s work – which they described as “indefensible”, but the Board had not been shown the contract or the report. She claimed that LT was now “making a clean break from the past, continuing to support Labour in power” by introducing an audit/risk committee and a whistleblowing process.
This type of approach is akin to sweeping things under the carpet and is completely unacceptable. It only deals with the tip of the iceberg – Simons and the ACPO report – and then in a perfunctory way, typical of an organisation trying to manage their own reputation, rather than addressing the real issues.
In fact, the only formal independent investigation to date hardly touched on LT. It was carried out by the PM’s advisor on ministerial standards, who concluded that Simons had not breached the ministerial code, but there was “potential reputational damage” in him remaining in Government – (he still represents the LP in Parliament).
The first tranche of the Mandselson papers has now been released. They indicate that Starmer was made aware of Mandelson’s links to Epstein after Epstein’s conviction. The advice he received from others (except McSweeney) was that it was unsafe to appoint him, and he chose to ignore this. He acknowledges his culpability and has apologised, but surely such an appalling lack of judgement indicates that he is unfit to be PM and Labour leader? The release of further papers has been delayed due to the police investigation, but they are likely to trigger a number of questions for Starmer, McSweeney and Labour Together.
The key point is that any current Government or party dealings with Labour Together
should be suspended until there has been a wider, independent Labour movement investigation.
Pressure needs to be maintained to prevent the scandal from being buried by those who do not wish the full truth to emerge. The allegations contained in “The Fraud” go way beyond the Mandelson affair and Simons ACPO commission and need to be considered and addressed if party democracy and Labour values are to be restored.
Some of the key allegations that Paul Holden makes in his book (summarised from a recent Labour Hub post) are:
- McSweeney (as LT Company Secretary from July 2017) and “supported with over £800,000 in donations, of which over £700,000 were not declared to the Electoral Commission, pursued a covert fight-back against Corbynism. He paid for vast amounts of internal Party polling and helped right-wing Labour candidates in their internal Labour elections. All while Labour Together was presenting in public that it was working as a project to bring the Party’s traditions together in collaborative conversation”.
- From July 2019, McSweeney began working with Starmer to shape his leadership campaign. According to Labour Together’s own legend, the organisation then worked to help Sir Keir win the Labour leadership campaign between January 2020 and April 2020, despite telling the public that they were not supporting any particular candidate. As we know, Starmer was elected on a continuity “for the many” programme, which was soon abandoned.
- After a period of relative dormancy, Labour Together was effectively relaunched in 2023 under the leadership of Josh Simons, a friend of McSweeney. By then, McSweeney had engineered Peter Mandelson’s return to intervening in the minutiae of Party management, primarily directed at remaking the Labour Party in their joint image. Labour Together performed three roles in this period. It acted as a policy shop for the incoming Labour government, and also published reports that rolled the pitch for McSweeney’s electoral strategy to pitch the Party right on economic and cultural issues. The second is that it became a clearing-house through which funds from millionaire, billionaire and pro-Israel donors would be funnelled to provide support to MP candidates who had been hand-picked by McSweeney, with the alleged input and support of Mandelson. Simons would be one of several McSweenyite insiders who would be parachuted into a safe Labour seat during the July 2024 General Election”.
| “We now know that Labour Together, under Josh Simons direction, appointed a company called APCO Worldwide to respond to the reporting. The focus was on producing a “body of evidence” that could be used to “proactively undermine” the factually accurate public interest reporting on Labour Together”. Labour Together continues to receive very significant amounts of donor funding from ultra-rich patrons (£3.3m since the 8th of July 2024 to January 2026). It now uses this money to write largely right-leaning policy, which it uses its access and influence to convince the Labour Party to adopt. One recent example of this is Digital ID, a policy pushed by Labour Together and the Tony Blair Institute. Since 2019, we have witnessed a considerable and unprecedented number of purges, expulsions and resignations from the party. A culture of top-down control has been imposed, with long-serving councillors being vetoed and local parties being prevented from selecting their local and Parliamentary candidates. We are even told not to attend certain demonstrations which we would’ve supported in the past. In June 2023, after an interview by a panel of the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party Driscoll was unsuccessful in progressing to a ballot of Labour Party members in the selection process to determine a Labour Party candidate for Mayor of the North East. Labour Peer Jenny Chapman defended the decision as “simply guaranteeing the highest quality candidates”. Unite the Union and its general secretary, Sharon Graham, criticised the decision to exclude Driscoll. Andy Burnham and Steve Rotheram described the Labour Party as undemocratic, opaque and unfair. Aditya Chakrabortty wrote in The Guardian that Driscoll was a “victim of McCarthyism“. This trend towards control and authoritarianism also runs through some of the Government’s policies on civil liberties and immigration, as we have indicated. If Labour is to survive, this needs to end, and we need to ensure that democracy is restored by breaking the grip that certain interest groups – such as LT and their financial backers – have on the party. For this, we need a change of leadership and a party that is committed to democratic reform and open discussion. |