{"id":156556,"date":"2025-09-24T00:35:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T00:35:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/156556\/"},"modified":"2025-09-24T00:35:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T00:35:06","slug":"tories-demand-inquiry-into-claims-labours-mcsweeney-misled-elections-watchdog-morgan-mcsweeney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/156556\/","title":{"rendered":"Tories demand inquiry into claims Labour\u2019s McSweeney misled elections watchdog | Morgan McSweeney"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Conservatives have called for an investigation into Keir Starmer\u2019s beleaguered chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney<\/a>, after allegations he tried to mislead the elections watchdog over donations to a Labour thinktank he ran while in opposition.<\/p>\n

The organisation, Labour Together, was fined \u00a314,250 by the Electoral Commission in 2021 over its handling of almost \u00a3740,000 of donations. The Tories have claimed that it used a \u201cfalse excuse\u201d of administrative errors.<\/p>\n

They have now released a leaked email from Labour lawyer Gerald Shamash, in which he advised McSweeney to drop his claim that he had been told he did not have to declare the donations, adding that he hoped to minimise publicity for the rule breach.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy advice, but it is in practice the only realistic route, we are being and have to be seen as transparent as possible,\u201d Shamash wrote. \u201cThe amounts of the late reported donations is \u00a3739,492 and there are, in my view, no easy way to explain how Labour Together finds itself in this situation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was only after McSweeney\u2019s departure from the organisation that his replacement, Hannah O\u2019Rourke, found almost three years of donations had not been declared and filed a series of late declarations to the watchdog.<\/p>\n

David Lammy, the deputy prime minister, has described the allegations over McSweeney\u2019s handling of the donations as \u201cmuck-racking\u201d but the emails threaten to reopen controversy surrounding Labour Together, which has supported Starmer\u2019s leadership.<\/p>\n

McSweeney, who masterminded Labour\u2019s 2024 election landslide, left his role with the thinktank in April 2020 to become a senior aide to Starmer in opposition and then in government.<\/p>\n

However, he has been facing growing unrest from Labour MPs in recent weeks over the party\u2019s poor poll ratings, as well as criticism over his advice to Starmer to appoint Peter Mandelson as US ambassador despite knowing about his links to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein after his conviction.<\/p>\n

Downing Street has refused to answer questions about McSweeney\u2019s time at Labour Together, but Starmer\u2019s official spokesperson said the prime minister continued to have \u201cfull confidence\u201d in his chief of staff.<\/p>\n

Kevin Hollinrake, the Tory party chair, said: \u201cThe Conservatives<\/a> are taking the unprecedented step of publishing leaked correspondence of the legal advice given to Keir Starmer\u2019s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt shows how authorities may have been misled over hundreds of thousands of pounds of donations used to install Starmer as Labour leader. We believe there is a strong public interest in revealing the full truth to the public about possible criminal wrongdoing.\u201d<\/p>\n

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After the allegations first emerged at the weekend, a spokesperson for the thinktank said: \u201cLabour Together proactively raised concerns about its own reporting of donations to the Electoral Commission in 2020.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Electoral Commission\u2019s investigation, with which Labour Together fully cooperated, was completed in 2021. The outcome was made public and widely covered by the media at the time. Since this time, we have taken measures to ensure Labour Together is fully compliant with all Electoral Commission regulations.\u201d<\/p>\n

An Electoral Commission spokesperson said: \u201cThe commission thoroughly investigated the late reporting of donations by Labour Together and published our findings in 2021.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were satisfied that the evidence proved beyond reasonable doubt that failures by the association occurred without reasonable excuse. Offences were determined and they were sanctioned accordingly.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Conservatives have called for an investigation into Keir Starmer\u2019s beleaguered chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, after allegations…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":156557,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-156556","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}