Labour Apart: How Morgan McSweeney Levered the Left Out of Power
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The book Get In, about Keir Starmer's rise to power, has been sitting on my bookshelf since it was first published back in February. I had avoided reading it in part because I pretty much knew the story of how Starmer became party leader and then Prime Minister, and partly because I didn't want to be reminded about how events between 2017 and 2024 unfolded. It was painful. As ever with Labour, I was a bit part player, but that small part taught me important lessons in why and how you win power.
The central character in Get In is not of course Starmer but Morgan McSweeney, now his chief of staff, then the person who ran Labour Together, the shadowy organisation that was to change the face of the party and the country.
Between 2017 and 2020 Morgan was a regular visitor to my flat and to Compass events. I gave advice on how to set up Labour Together and I attended its strategy sessions at Warwick University and went to their private London dinners.
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Back then Morgan's line was this. The radical economic case of Corbynism is evidently true, what we need to do is sort out the 'stain of anti-semitism' and professionalise the project. On the surface it was to all intents and purposes 'Corbynism without Corbyn'.
I know that for some any critique of 'Saint Jeremy' is a critique too much. Of course, there were people in the Parliamentary Labour Party and the mainstream media who wanted to destroy him and would go to any length to do so. But Jeremy was an accidental 'leader'. He didn't want the post, it was just his turn to stand and wave the red flag. He wasn't ready to lead in the sense of having a strategy to govern the party let alone the country. None of that takes away from the fact that his campaign in 2017 struck a chord with so many. That's why Morgan sounded authentic when he was offering to keep the content but ditch the culture.
But that, as we now know, isn't what Morgan really had planned. Instead, he sucked up the language of the left so that he could destroy it. His well-funded polling of the party, as Get In demonstrates, showed that the vast majority of party members were idealists not ideologues. Morgan just needed a candidate who could look like continuity Corbynism but was malleable enough to be shifted as soon as the leadership was secured.
Starmer, who had little to do with Labour Together, was that candidate. He had stayed in the Shadow Cabinet and become the liberal left's darling through his demand for a second referendum. He looked and sounded prime ministerial. His name was Keir for god's sake. With his ten Corbynite pledges on public ownership, dropping tuition fees and the rest, wrapped inside an envelope that had 'integrity contained inside' printed across it - he won with ease.
And then the war on the left started. And not just the hard left but the centre left, who were seen as gatekeepers to any possible return of Corbyn style politics. This much we broadly know. But it's the implications of victory through deceit that are now important to unpick - especially for progressives.
Because the right and the far left can win on a lie. For them means are justified by ends. Theirs is the politics of the vanguard. Small cabals with big plans to seize control of the state and wield it for purposes they believe to be virtuous. Labour Together was a modern-day version of the Militant Tendency, a party within a party, masquerading as something it wasn't, lying to ...
For digital and print editions, packed with exclusive investigations, analysis, features, and columns….
SUBSCRIBE
The book Get In, about Keir Starmer's rise to power, has been sitting on my bookshelf since it was first published back in February. I had avoided reading it in part because I pretty much knew the story of how Starmer became party leader and then Prime Minister, and partly because I didn't want to be reminded about how events between 2017 and 2024 unfolded. It was painful. As ever with Labour, I was a bit part player, but that small part taught me important lessons in why and how you win power.
The central character in Get In is not of course Starmer but Morgan McSweeney, now his chief of staff, then the person who ran Labour Together, the shadowy organisation that was to change the face of the party and the country.
Between 2017 and 2020 Morgan was a regular visitor to my flat and to Compass events. I gave advice on how to set up Labour Together and I attended its strategy sessions at Warwick University and went to their private London dinners.
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The Chancellor's Spending Review was far more radical and transformative than anyone has yet realised, argues Josiah Mortimer
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Back then Morgan's line was this. The radical economic case of Corbynism is evidently true, what we need to do is sort out the 'stain of anti-semitism' and professionalise the project. On the surface it was to all intents and purposes 'Corbynism without Corbyn'.
I know that for some any critique of 'Saint Jeremy' is a critique too much. Of course, there were people in the Parliamentary Labour Party and the mainstream media who wanted to destroy him and would go to any length to do so. But Jeremy was an accidental 'leader'. He didn't want the post, it was just his turn to stand and wave the red flag. He wasn't ready to lead in the sense of having a strategy to govern the party let alone the country. None of that takes away from the fact that his campaign in 2017 struck a chord with so many. That's why Morgan sounded authentic when he was offering to keep the content but ditch the culture.
But that, as we now know, isn't what Morgan really had planned. Instead, he sucked up the language of the left so that he could destroy it. His well-funded polling of the party, as Get In demonstrates, showed that the vast majority of party members were idealists not ideologues. Morgan just needed a candidate who could look like continuity Corbynism but was malleable enough to be shifted as soon as the leadership was secured.
Starmer, who had little to do with Labour Together, was that candidate. He had stayed in the Shadow Cabinet and become the liberal left's darling through his demand for a second referendum. He looked and sounded prime ministerial. His name was Keir for god's sake. With his ten Corbynite pledges on public ownership, dropping tuition fees and the rest, wrapped inside an envelope that had 'integrity contained inside' printed across it - he won with ease.
And then the war on the left started. And not just the hard left but the centre left, who were seen as gatekeepers to any possible return of Corbyn style politics. This much we broadly know. But it's the implications of victory through deceit that are now important to unpick - especially for progressives.
Because the right and the far left can win on a lie. For them means are justified by ends. Theirs is the politics of the vanguard. Small cabals with big plans to seize control of the state and wield it for purposes they believe to be virtuous. Labour Together was a modern-day version of the Militant Tendency, a party within a party, masquerading as something it wasn't, lying to ...
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