Labour Together

think tank,

Labour Together  link () Companies House Website
File:Labour Together.jpg
Founder	John Clarke
Re-launched in May 2026 as Think Labour

Labour Together is a British think tank closely associated with the right wing of the Labour Party.

Founded in June 2015 with the initial aim of bridging factions within the party, Labour Together soon switched its focus to opposing the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, installing Keir Starmer in the 2020 Labour Party leadership election and campaigning to win the UK/General election/2024. Israel lobbyist Sir Trevor Chinn and hedge fund manager Martin Taylor are two of its major donors.

Labour Together failed to declare £730,000 of donations from millionaire venture capitalists and businessmen between 2017 and 2020. The organisation was fined and found guilty of over 20 separate breaches of the law. In 2025 it was reported that they had paid private investigators to run a smear campaign against prominent journalists investigating "Operation Red Shield", Labour Together's campaign to marginalise the Labour left.

In May 2026, Labour Together was re-launched with a new name Think Labour and the same company number. Directors include Jonathan Kestenbaum, the ex-IDF soldier who donated to Starmer’s 2020 leadership campaign.

Labour Together Limited

Incorporated on 9 June 2015, Labour Together Ltd records the following 18 officers and 12 resignations (marked *):

• Alison Phillips
• Michael Anthony Craven
• Lord Jonathan Andrew Kestenbaum
• Baroness Sally Morgan
• Francesca Elizabeth Sainsbury Perrin
• William Reginald Somerville
• Morgan James McSweeney *
• Luke Sean Murphy *
• Hannah Elisabeth O'Rourke *
• Joshua Cameron Simons *
• Matthew Upton *
• Sir Trevor Edwin Chinn *
• John Clarke *
• Jon Cruddas *
• Lisa Eva Nandy *
• Steven Mark Ward Reed *
• Baroness Sharon Jane Taylor *
• Baroness Deborah Ann Wilcox *

Removing Corbyn

In 2017, Morgan McSweeney took over as Director of Labour Together at its offices in Vauxhall, responsible to a board which included Steve Reed, Lisa Nandy, Jon Cruddas and Sir Trevor Chinn. The purpose of the group was to remove Jeremy Corbyn from the leadership position "by any means necessary". This was primarily achieved by exploiting the issue of antisemitism. McSweeney wrote in an early confidential strategy paper, that the group would cultivate "seemingly independent voices to generate and share content to build up a political narrative and challenge fake news and political extremism." They also launched a Stop Funding Fake News campaign targeting websites they considered alt-left or alt-right, which included identifying articles they deemed to contain racist or fake content and contacting advertisers on these sites.

Fined by Electoral Commission

In December 2020, acting director Hannah O'Rourke filed a series of donation reports that, from 2017 until 2020, had not been filed within 30 days as required by the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. Labour Together was investigated by the Electoral Commission from January 2021 for failing to declare over £800,000 of donations within 30 days, £730,000 of which was not disclosed when McSweeney was director. McSweeney had falsely asserted in a January 2019 meeting in parliament that donations were being declared fully and promptly. The investigation became public in February 2021, when Business Insider revealed that only £165,000 of the £970,492 donated between October 2015 and January 2021 had been declared within the specified period. O'Rourke stated that this "administrative oversight" was "entirely unintentional" and asserted that "we are now fully transparent and compliant with regards to our donations, and are cooperating fully with the Electoral Commission to assist them in their ongoing inquiry." Following this, the Electoral Commission stated that "admin error" was not a reasonable excuse, and fined Labour Together £14,250 in September 2021 after finding it had committed over 20 offences under electoral law, including disclosures with incorrect information and a failure to appoint a "responsible person" for declaring funds.

"Operation Cannon"

In 2022 Josh Simons became the director of the think tank Labour Together, which he led until his Parliamentary selection in 2024. In February 2026, it was reported that PR firm APCO had investigated the private affairs of several journalists after being commissioned by Labour Together whilst Simons was director, to ascertain the source of reports about Labour Together's late declaration of certain donations. The Sunday Times reported that the APCO report, named "Operation Cannon", was written by a former Sunday Times employee and was shown to Labour shadow cabinet members, falsely suggesting that two Sunday Times journalists were part of a Russian campaign to politically harm Starmer.

Labour Together sent a shorter version of the APCO report to GCHQ's UK National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), which declined to investigate. Prime Minister Keir Starmer asked the Independent Advisor on Ministerial Standards to investigate whether Simons had breached the Ministerial Code. In a letter to the Prime Minister, the Independent Advisor found there was "no basis" for advising "of any breach of the Ministerial Code" by Simons, but that the story may continue to pose "potential reputational damage" to his government.

On 1 March 2026, hours after the US/Israeli bombing of Iran began, Simons resigned from the government, stating that he did not wish to become a "distraction".

Calls for re-investigation

On 13 October 2025, investigative journalist Paul Holden explained why he had given exclusive extracts of "The Fraud" to The Canary and Inside Croydon:

Last month, I started releasing exclusive stories from my upcoming book, "The Fraud: Keir Starmer, Morgan McSweeney and the Crisis of British Democracy".

The results were immediate.

In the first week, Paul Ovenden, Number 10’s director of strategy, resigned after I revealed his role in problematic chat messages, conducted via his Labour Party messaging system, about Diane Abbott.

The following week, I put out documents and stories that led to calls for the re-opening of investigations into Labour Together related to its failure to report donations totalling close to £740,000 to the Electoral Commission. Between mid-2017 and early 2020, Labour Together was the vehicle through which Morgan McSweeney, now chief of staff to the Prime Minister, waged a covert campaign to destroy the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn. This was done as a precursor to hand-picking a successor more to the liking of McSweeney’s right-wing faction: Sir Keir Starmer.

Not long after, I revealed that, starting in November 2023, Labour Together had hired a reputation management firm to investigate me, my family, and my colleagues. Labour Together hired the firm, and even reported me to the UK’s security services, after it became public that I was investigating McSweeney, Labour Together, its undisclosed donations – and what they were used for.

This week, I’ve released stories from "The Fraud" that expose how McSweeney and his close ally, Imran Ahmed, used their dodgy astroturf projects, Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) and Stop Funding Fake News (SFFN), to launch a pan-Atlantic war on free speech in the US and UK while also intervening in the 2019 European Elections.

Part of this story, now told in full and without caveat in my book, involved SFFN launching a genuinely despicable campaign to demonetise The Canary, behind the veil of anonymity, because The Canary posed a threat to McSweeney’s political ambitions.

But The Canary was not the only outlet targeted by the people who now occupy major positions of power in the Labour government. Also targeted was an indefatigable local news outlet called Inside Croydon and its editor Steven Downes.

Inside Croydon reported on the politics of the borough of Croydon, the stomping ground of Steve Reed MP. It reported critically, but I believe accurately, on Reed and his local political allies, as well the Labour-led Croydon Council. Croydon Council declared effective bankruptcy in 2020 while under the control of the very same people Inside Croydon was reporting on.

Reed, as my book shows, was one of McSweeney’s closest collaborators, in addition to serving as a director of Labour Together for seven years between 2016 and 2023.

References

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