Leaked files have exposed that Labour Together, a think tank run by Morgan McSweeney, the former chief of staff to UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, paid the Washington DC-based corporate intelligence firm APCO Worldwide to target journalists investigating the organization's campaign finances.
The journalists were reportedly singled out for their reporting on how UK Labour Party elites spent 730,000 pounds in undeclared donations to support Starmer's installation as party leader. Labour Together, described in the files as overseen by McSweeney, a disgraced former top Starmer aide, enlisted APCO for this purpose.
According to the leaked documents, APCO used the funds—amounting to £30,000—to oversee the creation of a dossier alleging that Russia was behind damaging disclosures about Labour Together. This evidence-free report was submitted to Britain's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), part of GCHQ, London's counterpart to the US National Security Agency.
The dossier listed "significant persons of interest," including The Grayzone and one of its authors. It described the journalist as a "self described ‘investigative journalist,’" noting affiliations with The Grayzone, which it called a site described as a ‘conspiracy blog’ and ‘Wagner propaganda channel.’
The APCO document further stated that in 2023, the journalist "was arrested by counter-terror police after [he] arrived in the UK." The files portray this effort as a response to scrutiny over Labour Together's financial dealings.
McSweeney, once Starmer's top aide and now his former chief of staff, headed Labour Together during the period in question. The revelations highlight tensions between Labour Party figures and independent journalists probing party funding irregularities.
