Morgan McSweeney

Morgan McSweeney    ( deep state actor,  zionist,  political activist)
Born	Morgan James McSweeney April 1977  Macroom,  Ireland
Alma mater	Middlesex University
Spouse	Imogen Walker
Founder of	Center for Countering Digital Hate
Member of	Arlington Group, Center for Countering Digital Hate
Protégé of Lord Mandelson, Israeli asset and Starmer's former Downing Street Chief of Staff  Downing Street Chief of Staff  In office 6 October 2024 - 8 February 2026 Preceded by Sue Gray  Keir Starmer's Chief of Staff In office April 2020 - 4 July 2024 Employer Labour Party  Director In office 19 October 2018 - 6 April 2020 Employer Center for Countering Digital Hate  Managing Director In office June 2017 - January 2020 Employer Labour Together  Head of the Labour Group Office In office November 2012 - June 2017 Employer Local Government Association  Political Adviser In office November 2009 - November 2012 Employer Local Government Association  Director of Communities In office October 2007 - November 2009 Employer The Campaign Company  Head of Leader's Office In office May 2006 - October 2007 Employer London Borough of Lambeth  Campaign Organiser In office June 2001 - May 2006 Employer Labour Party

Morgan McSweeney is a Labour Party political activist who replaced Sue Gray as PM Keir Starmer's Downing Street Chief of Staff on 6 October 2024. He resigned on 8 February 2026 in the wake of the Lord Mandelson/Jeffrey Epstein scandal.

McSweeney was previously Chief of Staff to Starmer, as Leader of the Opposition (2020 to 2024). In October 2018, he founded and was Director of Brixton Endeavours Ltd, later renamed the Center for Countering Digital Hate, until April 2020. He was Managing Director at Labour Together from June 2017 to January 2020.

Resignation

On 8 February 2026, Morgan McSweeney resigned as Downing Street Chief of Staff, taking “full responsibility” for his advice to Keir Starmer to appoint Lord Mandelson as the British Ambassador to the US. He released this resignation statement:

“After careful reflection, I have decided to resign from the government.

“The decision to appoint Peter Mandelson was wrong. He has damaged our party, our country and trust in politics itself.

“When asked, I advised the Prime Minister to make that appointment and I take full responsibility for that advice. In public life responsibility must be owned when it matters most, not just when it is most convenient. In the circumstances, the only honourable course is to step aside.

“This has not been an easy decision. Much has been written and said about me over the years but my motivations have always been simple: I have worked every day to elect and support a government that puts the lives of ordinary people first and leads us to a better future for our great country. Only a Labour government will do that. I leave with pride in all we have achieved mixed with regret at the circumstances of my departure. But I have always believed there are moments when you must accept your responsibility and step aside for the bigger cause.

“As I leave I have two further reflections:

“Firstly, and most importantly, we must remember the women and girls whose lives were ruined by Jeffrey Epstein and whose voices went unheard for far too long.

“Secondly, while I did not oversee the due diligence and vetting process, I believe that process must now be fundamentally overhauled. This cannot simply be a gesture but a safeguard for the future.

“I remain fully supportive of the Prime Minister. He is working every day to rebuild trust, restore standards and serve the country. I will continue to back that mission in whatever way I can. It has been the honour of my life to serve.”

Keir Starmer said:

“It’s been an honour working with Morgan McSweeney for many years. He turned our party around after one of its worst ever defeats and played a central role running our election campaign. It is largely thanks to his dedication, loyalty and leadership that we won a landslide majority and have the chance to change the country.

“Having worked closely with Morgan in opposition and in government, I have seen every day his commitment to the Labour Party and to our country. Our party and I owe him a debt of gratitude, and I thank him for his service.”

McSweeney's ties to Israel

On 5 February 2026, three days before McSweeney's resignation, The Electronic Intifada's Jody McIntyre wrote:

Morgan McSweeney, the secretive Labour Party operative effectively running the British government, has been thrust into the spotlight in recent months.

As Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, McSweeney is said to hold immense influence over the direction of the country. Recent book "The Fraud" by investigative journalist Paul Holden, exposed many of McSweeney’s backroom dealings. The book has already led to two resignations at Number 10 Downing Street, the prime minister’s official residence and headquarters.

However, despite calls to step down, McSweeney himself seems invulnerable to pressure.

It is impossible to understand the slavish pro-Israeli stance adopted by Keir Starmer and the Labour Party in recent years without understanding McSweeney.

In November, Health Secretary Wes Streeting – a stalwart in the pressure group Labour Friends of Israel – said that “there wouldn’t be a Labour government without him.” Journalist George Eaton wrote that the current Labour cabinet “more than ever, is made in McSweeney’s image.”

But the man who preferred to operate in the shadows for many years has now had his cover blown.

The mainstream media’s focus has been how he illegally hid donations to Labour Together, while he was director of that organisation, the one that was credited with propelling Keir Starmer into leadership of the party.

Yet most journalists have missed – either deliberately or negligently – a key thread of the McSweeney story: his historic relationship with pro-Israeli lobbyists, politicians and financiers.

This story starts before McSweeney even joined Labour.

As a teenager in 1994, he dropped out of university and went to stay in Sarid, a kibbutz (Jewish colony) originally established on stolen Palestinian land in 1926. It seems apparent that this was a formative experience for the young McSweeney, but little is written about his time in the north of occupied historic Palestine.

One exception to that rule is Patrick Maguire and Gabriel Pogrund’s account of Starmer’s rise to power, "Get In". In that book, the journalists from London paper The Times report that “in a factory built by Czech Jews at Sarid, nine miles from Nazareth, the lazy teenager learned to work. He built saw-cutters and grinding wheels. He returned to London not just with a tan but a work ethic.”

According to The Jerusalem Post, in that kibbutz and the surrounding Jezreel Valley, McSweeney would have become “closely acquainted with the Hashomer Hatzair,” a Zionist settler organisation founded in Austria-Hungary in 1913.

According to Israeli general Moshe Dayan, in his infamous 1969 speech about depopulated Palestinian villages no longer existing due to Jewish colonisation, “Sarid [arose] in the place of Haneifs … There is not one place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population.”

Who did McSweeney stay with during his Israeli sojourn? Who did he meet?

While researching this article, a former Labour volunteer, “Simon,” contacted me and spoke on condition of anonymity. Simon claimed that McSweeney was deliberately inserted into the party and later became Keir Starmer’s “handler,” presenting compromising material to keep him “in line.”

Starmer has arguably gone further than any previous Labour leader in pushing an extreme pro-Israeli narrative in the British political sphere, once announcing that he supports “Zionism without qualification.”

McSweeney joined the Labour Party in 1997, and in 2001 was set to work on “Excalibur,” a database established by influential Labour planner Peter Mandelson, who was in many ways the architect of Tony Blair’s infamous “New Labour” project to remodel the party in the neoliberal image.

According to a contemporary BBC News report, the Excalibur database “rivalled MI5” – Britain’s domestic spy agency – “in the information it held on anybody and everybody, friend or foe,” and Mandelson’s headquarters “became synonymous with spin-doctory and control-freakery.”

McSweeney’s relationship with his mentor would endure. He was reportedly “very insistent” on Mandelson’s appointment as British ambassador to the US in 2024.

McSweeney then tried to delay Mandelson’s ultimate sacking in September 2025.

Mandelson was eventually fired after revelations about his close friendship with convicted paedophile and suspected Israeli intelligence asset Jeffrey Epstein. Emails released by the US Congress show that Mandelson called Epstein “my best pal” and that Epstein referred to Mandelson fondly as “Petie.”

John McTernan, an adviser to Tony Blair when he was Britain’s prime minister, once praised McSweeney as “the new Peter Mandelson.”

In a seemingly inexplicable move that embarrassed even his staunchest supporters, Starmer is alleged to have effectively overruled British security services in promoting Mandelson, despite overwhelming evidence of his close friendship with Epstein.

Was Starmer acting on the orders of McSweeney in appointing Mandelson?

Is the subordinate actually the handler, as my whistleblower claims? And if so, who is McSweeney managing the prime minister on behalf of?

Israel lobbyists

McSweeney cut his political teeth campaigning for Steve Reed in the Lambeth local authority elections of 2006.

Reed, now Starmer’s housing minister, is a veteran supporter of Labour Friends of Israel, an opaque lobby group which refuses to reveal its funders and has close links to the Israeli embassy in London. As previously reported by The Electronic Intifada, in 2020 Reed secretly met influential Israel lobby financier Trevor Chinn and five other Israel lobbyists, giving the group a series of pledges and setting up “a regular channel of communication.”

McSweeney’s next political challenge came in East London in between 2008 and 2010, when he worked on public relations for right-wing, pro-Israel lawmaker Margaret Hodge, helping her to retain the parliamentary seat for Barking, against a challenge from the insurgent far-right British National Party.

This campaign was bolstered by Hope Not Hate, a supposedly anti-racist group which in fact aids Zionism – Israel’s state ideology – and has shadowy ties to Britain’s intelligence agencies. Previous employees at Hope Not Hate include Ruth Smeeth a former lawmaker who has been active in Labour Friends of Israel, Jemma Levene, a blogger for The Times of Israel, and Liron Velleman a pro-Israeli activist and former policy officer for the Jewish Labour Movement, another lobby group. (In 2024, Velleman was forced to resign as a North London councillor under mysterious circumstances. Then last year he pleaded guilty to a series of sex offences against a 13-year-old girl.)

McSweeney’s former team in Barking and Dagenham gave an early indication of his political philosophy. Among them was David Evans, future Labour general secretary under Starmer.

Evans is reportedly a “fierce critic of anti-Zionism” and was later responsible for booting former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn out of the party.

Evans was subsequently rewarded by Starmer with a lifetime appointment to the House of Lords, Britain’s unelected upper chamber.

Hodge, a self-described “committed Zionist,” is also known for her role in allegedly covering up a child sexual abuse ring which had infiltrated care homes in Islington, a London neighbourhood, between the 1960s and 1990s. Under her leadership, the local authority in Islington was found to have ignored the complaints of victims.

Hodge herself in 2003 attempted to discredit one survivor who spoke out, but was soon forced to apologise for her smear campaign against him under threat of a libel suit. As recently as 2024, Hodge claimed her failings were the result of being badly advised – yet she still refuses to name those who allegedly advised her to ignore the complaints.

During the Gaza genocide, in January 2024, Hodge took part in a propaganda trip paid for by Labour Friends of Israel. She met Israeli president Isaac Herzog, who infamously claimed that there are no innocent civilians in Gaza, a statement cited by South Africa in its case against Israel in the International Court of Justice for the crime of genocide.

As with Evans, Starmer rewarded Hodge for her services with a life peerage nomination.

"Protect Trevor Chinn”

McSweeney’s next outing was in 2015, when he reportedly “masterminded” Liz Kendall’s doomed Labour leadership campaign. Evidently, even McSweeney’s political genius has its limits: in a stunning victory, Jeremy Corbyn won the leadership and Kendall came last with 4.5 percent of the membership vote.

In November 2023, as the Gaza genocide unfolded, Labour Friends of Israel supporter Kendall was asked whether the Labour Party would condemn Israeli use of white phosphorus, an incendiary weapon, the use of which is heavily restricted by international law.

“I think it would be unwise when we are not on the ground to comment,” she replied.

But the reason McSweeney has been ejected from his self-imposed cocoon and propelled into infamy in recent months stems from 2017, when he became director of a company called “Labour Together Ltd.”

As has now been widely reported, McSweeney failed to report almost a million dollars’ worth of donations to Labour Together, who were later fined for breaking UK electoral law more than 20 times. A regulator accepted McSweeney’s questionable explanation that this failure was an accidental oversight, meaning the fine was relatively low – just over $19,000.

However, many journalists reporting on the scandal have failed to examine who was funding Labour Together.

McSweeney is reported to have concealed the donations, at least partially, “to protect Trevor Chinn, Labour Together’s great benefactor.”

Arguably the British pro-Israel lobby’s most important financial backer, Chinn has personally bankrolled both Conservative and Labour Friends of Israel.

In 2024, he was awarded for “service to the state of Israel” by génocidaire Isaac Herzog. Indeed in 2013 Chinn stated that he had “spent my entire life working for Israel,” so his loyalties are no secret.

Not only did Chinn fund McSweeney’s Labour Together operation, but when McSweeney became a director of the organisation in 2017, Chinn was already on the board himself.

As well as bankrolling the think tank, Chinn also personally bankrolled Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner, Rachel Reeves, Bridget Phillipson, Lisa Nandy, Wes Streeting and David Lammy – who would all go on to take leading roles in the Labour government elected in July 2024.

Pro-Israel funders

While McSweeney was ensuring his influence over Labour’s candidate selection, Chinn was gaining the ear of the future prime minister and cabinet.

Another funder of Labour Together was Gary Lubner, who has also donated more than $8 million to the central party since 2022 and financed many of their new batch of MPs, including Labour Friends of Israel vice-chairs Damian Egan and Mike Tapp, as well as Justice Secretary David Lammy. But Lubner also funded the election campaign of Morgan McSweeney’s wife, Imogen Walker, who was conveniently selected for a safe seat in Scotland and elected in 2024.

Epstein’s friend Peter Mandelson also helped fundraise for Walker.

McSweeney’s influence is also widely credited with the candidacy of veteran Israel lobbyist Luke Akehurst in Durham, a city with which he had no apparent connection prior to the general election in 2024. Once described by Israeli embassy spy Shai Masot as “one of the best” in Labour, Akehurst was chosen for the seat “after a secretive selection process excluding members of the North Durham constituency party.”

Incredibly, Akehurst was himself a member of the Labour National Executive Committee that was in charge of vetting candidates.

A 2024 prospective parliamentary candidate for Labour in London, Sara (not her real name) contacted me with her own experience of being dragged before a three-person panel consisting of Akehurst, Sharma Tatler and Anu Prashar.

“I was given five minutes notice and then told I wasn’t suitable, with no right to appeal,” she told me.

Who specifically gave the undeclared donations Labour Together was fined for has not been made public. But leaked emails revealed that McSweeney was advised to explain the hidden donations as an “admin error” by the long-standing Labour Party lawyer Gerald Shamash.

Shamash previously threatened to sue anti-Zionist writer Tony Greenstein on behalf of both the Labour Party and Scott Horner, a Labour official who got a local branch discussion on sanctions against Israel banned in 2021.

Once again rewarding his loyalists, Starmer made Shamash a life peer.

McSweeney’s Labour Together board also included Lisa Nandy, today Britain’s culture secretary. Nandy reportedly “demanded to know why no one at the BBC has lost their job” after the broadcast of "Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone", a documentary to which the Israel lobby objected, claiming it was too sympathetic to Palestinians.

The BBC subsequently pulled the program.

Nandy has also received tens of thousands of pounds from Israel lobbyists Stuart Roden and Trevor Chinn.

Ideological Zionists

McSweeney’s supporters are also a reflection of his ideology. Proud Zionist and Conservative peer Michael Gove, who recently wrote that the genocidal Israeli military should receive the Nobel Peace Prize, has praised McSweeney as “a fighter ruthless in identifying the real enemy.”

Last year, McSweeney successfully lobbied for Australian press baron Rupert Murdoch, a close friend of war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu, to be invited to the state banquet being put on for Donald Trump’s UK visit. McSweeney and Murdoch sat next to each other at the dinner.

Starmer’s “recognition” of Palestine as a state is a smokescreen – McSweeney is running the government.

Recent polls have rated Starmer as the most unpopular British prime minister in history. An enduring image of this serial failure will be his infamous radio interview when, in a response to a question about the cutting off of electricity and water to the entire population of Gaza, he said that “Israel has that right.”

But as always, McSweeney was operating behind the scenes. As the Gaza genocide commenced, and some dared to express disagreement with Starmer’s horrific comments, he messaged colleagues: “We can be stronger … We need to make it more about Hamas.”

McSweeney may have been lionised by party insiders in the past as “the saviour of the Labour Party” who “pulled us out of the mire.” But neither his career-long devotion to the Zionist cause nor his Mandelson-inspired political dark arts seem sufficient in saving Starmer from the political scrapheap.

Starmer’s downfall is now a matter of when, rather than if. But perhaps the real question is: how long can McSweeney remain ensconced in Number 10?

Campaign manager

Morgan McSweeney was Keir Starmer's campaign manager in the 2020 Labour Party leadership contest. He worked on Liz Kendall's leadership campaign in 2015, though that shouldn't be held against him as everyone who has worked with him says he is smart and highly able. He had also worked with Lisa Nandy in the Labour Together group, which carried out a review of the UK/2019 General Election loss.

Employed by David Evans

From 2007 to 2009, McSweeney was employed as Director of Communities at The Campaign Company, founded and run by David Evans, General Secretary of the Labour Party.

Silencing The Canary

On 1 December 2020, Andrew Feinstein tweeted:

For six months, SFFN had been trying to demonetise The Canary by lobbying companies to remove advertisements from its website.

The Canary can now reveal that Morgan McSweeney, Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, launched the organisation that now runs SFFN.

Future candidates

The Labour Party/Future Candidates Programme/2021 to 2022 will mould the Labour Party for many decades to come. Reporting that McSweeney had been put in charge of the process by Keir Starmer himself, The Times stated that "nobody without elected office wields as much power in British politics as McSweeney."

Many thanks to our Patrons who cover ~2/3 of our hosting bill. Please join them if you can.