THE elections watchdog will not reopen an investigation into secret donations to a group which helped propel Keir Starmer to power – despite mounting scrutiny of the organisation.
Labour Together, the think tank previously steered by Starmer’s chief of staff Morgan McSweeney, will escape a fresh probe by the Electoral Commission, it has been announced.
The think tank was investigated in 2021 by the commission for serially failing to disclose major donations from businessmen and venture capitalists.
It was founded in 2015 to undermine the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn and eventually found its candidate to replace him in Starmer.
Labour Together was fined £14,250 in September 2021 for failing to declare hundreds of thousands of pounds in donations.
It has since emerged that McSweeney, who stopped making donations reports in December 2017, had been warned explicitly by the commission that he must declare donations over £7500 under electoral law.
These failures was later put down as an “admin error” by Labour Together, an excuse which was rejected by the Electoral Commission after its probe in 2021.
It found that Labour Together had committed more than 20 breaches of electoral law involving more than £700,000 in donations.
The MPs credited with creating Labour Together – Rachel Reeves, Wes Streeting, Shabana Mahmood, Steve Reed, Bridget Phillipson, Lucy Powell and Lisa Nandy – are all now Cabinet ministers, except Powell who was dropped as Commons leader earlier this month.
She is now running to be deputy leader of the Labour Party against Phillipson.
In a statement on Friday, in the wake of renewed interest in the Labour Together story, a spokesperson for the Electoral Commission said: “We investigated the late reporting of donations by Labour Together and published our findings in 2021.
“We determined multiple offences including those relating to the late reporting of donations with a cumulative value of £739,492, as well as the failure to appoint a responsible person.
“The fine was significant and reflects the seriousness of the offences determined, for which no reasonable excuse was put forward.
“Earlier this week the Conservative Party wrote to us with concerns that other offences had been committed. We have thoroughly reviewed this information and found no evidence of any other potential offences. We are confident that the initial determination and sanction were appropriate.
“We are therefore not reopening the investigation.”
