Labour Together to rebrand after scandal involving secret probe of journalists

LONDON — The think tank credited with helping to deliver Keir Starmer's 2024 election landslide is set to overhaul its operations and change its name after being rocked by scandal. In her first public interview since being appointed as chief executive of Labour Together last September, Alison Phillips told POLITICO a full rebrand of the organization will take place in mid-May as it attempts to tackle perceptions of it being a “factional boys' club.”

“That's hung around us, even though I think it does a big disservice to the people that have been working here,” she said. “It's why we'll be coming out in May in a very different form. I think that's the only way to really signal that change.”

The group was thrust into the headlines earlier this year after reporting by Democracy for Sale showed that in 2023, its then-director Josh Simons had paid lobbying firm APCO Worldwide to conduct secret research into journalists investigating undisclosed donations to the group. APCO's report claimed — without evidence — that the story had been based on data hacked from the Electoral Commission. Some journalists targeted by the probe also had their religious and ideological positions examined by the lobbying firm.

Simons, who was elected as a Labour MP following his time at Labour Together, was forced to resign as a government minister in the wake of the affair. Coming just months after taking up the role, it was left to Phillips to handle the fallout.

While she remains of the view that APCO acted far beyond the agreed brief, she expressed frustration in her POLITICO interview that the work of her current team had been “undermined by something that happened long before they arrived.”

“It was just disappointing. I can't imagine why they thought that was either appropriate, a good idea, or of any value either,” she said of the lobbying group's probe. “I'm not quite sure what they thought it was all going to achieve.”

Phillips spent six years as editor of the left-leaning Daily Mirror newspaper before taking up the role. She says she has already reached out to some of the journalists targeted in the incident.

The chief executive said that she wants to move on from the scandal rather than “moan” about the reputational hit it's taken, but questions over the relationship between the group and Starmer's government persist.

Emerging as a refuge for disgruntled Labour MPs during the leadership of left-winger Jeremy Corbyn, the group quickly morphed into a hard-nosed political machine that drove Starmer's campaign to become Labour leader, and subsequently, prime minister. Those efforts were spearheaded by strategist Morgan McSweeney, with his success at Labour Together earning him a senior role in Starmer's leadership team. His appointment as the prime minister's chief of staff following the election would only cement the links between Downing Street and the think tank.

Its promise to reform the party into an election-winning machine also attracted millions in donations from a small group of wealthy businessmen, fueling further concerns about the organization's influence.

In the run up to the 2024 election, Labour Together used that war chest to provide donations to Labour candidates, second staff into the offices of senior party figures, and furnish Starmer's campaign with polling and policy expertise.

Following Starmer's victory, many of those credited with building the Labour Together operation were appointed to senior posts within the government. It's a relationship that has led to suggestions Labour Together has operated more like an American-style Super PAC than a traditional Westminster think tank.

But while Phillips accepts the “incredibly close” relationship prompted concerns, she refused to “trash” those efforts. “It got Labour into a position where it could win, and it could be a Labour government, and that was amazing,” she said.

Philips argues that the group quickly returned to being a “critical friend” after Labour's victory, but she concedes that the lingering perception of overbearing influence has been unhelpful.

“We want to have the freedom to think and help shape ideas for the future,” she said. “That might seem a bit out there for people in the here and now, but that's where we are going to have to get to.”

Phillips insists the planned rebrand will go further than just changing the name above the door. She suggests that the secondment of staff into ministerial offices, and donations to individual MPs, will all come to an end. And the private policy and polling work conducted for the party, she adds, will be replaced with a renewed focus on more public-facing research.

“I think we're going to have a more traditional think tank mode,” she said. “But our mission remains for Labour to win and govern well, and there's no shirking from that. We are proudly into the concept of winning in a way that sometimes gets lost elsewhere.”

With more of Starmer's closest allies becoming engulfed in the ongoing scandal about Peter Mandelson's appointment as the U.K.'s ambassador to the United States, a group of MPs on the left of Labour have attempted to pin the blame on the organization. Last week, former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell called for an independent inquiry into an organization which he argued was responsible for the “toxic culture” in Downing Street.

“A lot of it is completely, utterly bonkers,” Phillips said in response. “I mean this idea that they are sort of trying to connect us with Mandelson. He has nothing to do with this. The idea that we should be blamed for literally every bit of Labour policy that's happened at any point in history, that's not right.”

Phillips also rejected the suggestion that such an inquiry would allow Labour Together to prove to critics that there are no more skeletons lingering in its closet. “I've been through all sorts of documents, and the idea that we are responsible for all sorts of heinous crimes is, I'm afraid, very wide of the mark,” she said. “There's nothing like the APCO report there. There really isn't.”

While the new boss is promising to stay out of the “day-to-day politicking,” some in Westminster viewed its recent polling on potential successors to Starmer as a clear sign that Labour Together is seeking its next political patron.

Instead, Phillips repeatedly bats away suggestions that a change of leadership is needed to reinvigorate Labour's prospects. And in the event of a leadership contest to Starmer, she insists the group will not be endorsing or supporting any candidate.

“I really think our focus needs to be on ideas,” the CEO said. “If we're to be honest about working in a post-factional way, then I think that's not our role.”

Instead, the group is promising to focus on pushing a “radical” policy agenda which Phillips argues is lacking both in the U.K. and among centre-left parties doing battle with the populist right across the globe.

“Our thinking has got to be better than their thinking, and it's got to be sold more compellingly to the British public. That is the war that needs to be had,” she said. “And actually, I was having quite a nice life before taking up this role, but I've got three kids, and I couldn't look them in the eye if I didn't feel like I'd tried to do my little bit to prevent a Reform UK government.”