The Conservatives are urging Commons standards officials and the police to investigate money donated to the Labour Together group and whether Keir Starmer potentially benefited from it. So what is the row about? And do the Tory claims stand up?
What is Labour Together?
Labour Together is a thinktank and campaigning group closely linked to the Labour party. While often referred to as a vehicle for Starmer and his allies, it pre-dates his leadership.
Launched in 2015 after the party’s election defeat under Ed Miliband, it relaunched in 2017 under the leadership of Morgan McSweeney, now Starmer’s chief of staff, as a vehicle for wresting control of the party from Jeremy Corbyn and his allies and persuading centrist MPs not to break away.
When Corbyn stepped down after the 2019 election, the project coalesced around Starmer as its chosen replacement, with McSweeney heading his campaign. Labour Together raised large sums in donations at the time, a fact that is at the centre of the current controversy.
The Electoral Commission considers Labour Together to be a party members’ association, given its close links to Labour, meaning it is obliged to declare donations. In 2021 the elections watchdog fined Labour Together £14,250 for failing to properly declare almost £740,000 of donations. The group blamed “administrative error”.
Why is this suddenly in the news?
The Conservatives have gained access to documents that they say cast doubt on the idea this was an error, and that they also say indicate that Starmer should have declared assistance he received from Labour Together for his leadership bid.
The first document, released by the Tories on Tuesday, is an email to McSweeney in early 2021 from Gerald Shamash, a Labour party lawyer, asking a series of questions about what Labour Together knew about donations rules and whether it was subject to them, noting that McSweeney reported a donation as early as 2018, and so presumably understood what should be done.
Shamash wrote that there was “no easy way to explain how Labour Together finds itself in this situation” of not declaring nearly £740,000 of donations, adding: “If Labour Together cannot deal substantively with questions I pose then perhaps simply best to base our case as to the non-reporting down as admin error.”
On Thursday the Conservative party released an email from the Electoral Commission to McSweeney from 2017 in which the watchdog set out that Labour Together was a membership organisation and thus needed to abide by donations rules, including the need to declare them.
What potential wrongdoing do the Conservatives allege?
There are two main strands. Firstly, the Conservatives allege that the emails show that the idea of “administrative error” was just an excuse and that Labour Together knew full well it should declare donations. Kevin Hollinrake, the Conservative party chair, said it seemed that McSweeney had “covered up donations for years”.
Also, the party alleges that because Starmer received considerable help from Labour Together with his leadership campaign, including the services of McSweeney and assistance such as polling data, he should have declared this. All MPs must declare any financial assistance in their public register of interests, updated every fortnight.
In a lengthy thread on X on Thursday morning, Hollinrake said the parliamentary commissioner for standards and the police should now investigate.
Is there anything to the allegations?
No one has denied the veracity of the emails seemingly showing that McSweeney was told about his responsibility over declaring donations. That said, Labour Together admitted wrongdoing at the time and paid a fine. While the Electoral Commission has investigative and enforcement powers, it is generally happy to settle cases with an acceptance of fault, and “administrative error” is a broad definition. A new inquiry thus feels unlikely for now.
As for Starmer, one thing is undisputed: even if a donation is not explicitly financial but is a “benefit in kind”, as this is known, the rules say it needs to be declared. However, it is by no means certain that the help received by Starmer is covered by this definition.
Labour has said McSweeney was seconded to Starmer’s leadership campaign, who paid him for the period, meaning there was no donation from Labour Together. After Starmer won the contest, McSweeney left the thinktank to work as his aide.
On Starmer being helped by Labour Together polling, for this to be considered a benefit in kind it would most likely need to have been commissioned specifically for his campaign. While Labour Together did broadly support Starmer, it is understood that it carried out any polling separately. While Starmer’s campaign did see the details of the polling, so did the rival campaign for Lisa Nandy.
What are the political risks for Starmer and Labour?
If there is a new formal inquiry, let alone any punishment, this could be deeply damaging, not least as it could force the departure of McSweeney, which would be yet another blow to Starmer and his government, and a particularly major one.
There could also be knock-on reputational damage for other figures linked to Labour Together. For example, Shamash’s email to McSweeney mentions discussions he had also had with Steve Reed, now the housing and communities secretary, and Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, who were heavily involved with the group.
