A significant political scandal is intensifying around Morgan McSweeney, Keir Starmer's chief of staff, following the revelation of a leaked email. This email shows a prominent Labour lawyer advised McSweeney to characterize approximately £740,000 in previously undeclared donations to the think-tank Labour Together as a mere 'admin error'. This instruction came during an investigation by the Electoral Commission, further deepening a crisis that has drawn accusations of deceit and calls for police intervention.

The controversy stems from an incident in 2021 when Labour Together, a think-tank once headed by McSweeney, was fined £14,250 by the Electoral Commission for over 20 breaches of electoral law. These breaches involved a substantial sum of undeclared donations, totaling £739,492, which helped to finance Keir Starmer's rise to Labour leadership. The newly revealed email, sent in February 2021 by lawyer Gerald Shamash, who identifies as 'solicitor to the Labour Party', was published in full by the Conservatives, who have aggressively escalated their demands for further investigation.

The email explicitly advised McSweeney to retract his unsubstantiated claim that he had been verbally informed by the Electoral Commission in early 2018 that the donations did not need to be declared. Shamash warned that persisting with this claim without evidence would risk antagonizing the Commission. Instead, he recommended portraying the failure to declare the significant sums as a 'simple admin error', a strategy aimed at 'minimising publicity' and steering the watchdog towards an administrative penalty rather than more severe sanctions. Shamash's email noted, "The amounts of the late reported donations is £739,492 and there are, in my view, no easy way to explain how Labour Together finds itself in this situation. 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.” He also pointed out that neither the Commission nor Labour Together had any record of the purported phone call McSweeney cited.

This leaked legal advice directly contradicts Labour Together's previous public statements, which attributed the undeclared donations to 'human error and administrative oversight' and insisted on their 'open and transparent' conduct. Records indicate that while McSweeney initially declared donations when he became director in 2017, he largely ceased doing so in early 2018, with the exception of a single £12,500 disclosure. It was only after McSweeney left Labour Together in April 2020 to become a senior aide to Keir Starmer that his replacement, Hannah O'Rourke, discovered nearly three years of undeclared donations and subsequently filed a series of 'late' declarations with the Commission.

The political repercussions have been swift and severe. Kevin Hollinrake, the Tory Party chairman, condemned the revelations, stating, “The evidence is clear – Morgan McSweeney has been caught red-handed hiding hundreds of thousands of pounds which helped install Keir Starmer as Labour leader.” He described the affair as “incredibly serious – and potentially criminal,” calling for urgent investigations by both the Electoral Commission and the police. Conversely, Labour's deputy prime minister, David Lammy, has dismissed the allegations as "muck-raking." Despite the growing controversy and calls for accountability, Downing Street has consistently affirmed Keir Starmer's "full confidence" in his chief of staff, refusing to address questions regarding McSweeney's tenure at Labour Together.

The scandal also adds to broader pressures on McSweeney, who is credited with masterminding Labour's 2024 election landslide. He has faced internal unrest from Labour MPs over the party's current poor poll ratings and criticism for advising Sir Keir to appoint Lord Mandelson as US ambassador, despite Mandelson's controversial associations with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. These new revelations threaten to reopen and intensify a controversy Labour had sought to bury. The Electoral Commission, in its 2021 findings, explicitly stated it was "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.”