SIR KEIR STARMER’S top aides were involved in the Labour Together plot to snoop on and smear journalists investigating the faction’s law-breaking, it has been revealed.

Documents released through subject access requests from the organisation, recently rebranded as ThinkLabour in an effort to shake off the stench of scandal, prove that key factionalists Morgan McSweeney and Paul Ovenden met to discuss the plan in early 2024.

Both were then senior Labour Party officials who moved to top roles in Downing Street after the general election victory that year.  

They have subsequently been forced to quit, Mr McSweeney due to his role in the Mandelson affair and Mr Ovenden following the revelation of disgusting remarks about leading left MP Diane Abbott.

The exposure of the meeting, initiated by Josh Simons, then Labour Together director and recently-resigned as both a minister and an MP, raises the issue as to whether Sir Keir, then leader of the opposition, was aware of the Labour Together plan.

Mr Simons had hired the firm APCO to secretly investigate Paul Holden, author of the best-selling book The Fraud about Sir Keir’s deceitful rise to power. 

Mr Holden exposed evidence that Labour Together’s repeated failure to declare donations as required by law when Mr McSweeney was its director may not have been inadvertent, as it has long claimed.

The APCO report, forwarded by Mr Simons to the security services, smeared Mr Holden and his family, as well as a number of other journalists and Andrew Feinstein, Mr Holden’s professional colleague who mounted a powerful left challenge to Sir Keir in his Camden constituency in the general election.

In a statement, Mr Holden and Mr Feinstein said: “Labour Together and APCO targeted us, our colleagues, our associates and Paul’s family with utterly false and highly defamatory allegations, and this was done with the knowledge of the highest levels of the Labour Party.

“Indeed, we are now of the view that the operation to investigate us, our families and associates was effectively a joint operation run by the Labour Party, Labour Together and APCO.

“We are calling for a full inquiry into Labour Together. We also call on Sir Keir Starmer to clarify his role in this scandal. 

“Considering the documents that have been disclosed to date, we find it nearly inconceivable that Sir Keir Starmer did not know about this despicable project that included Labour Together reporting us to the National Cyber Security Centre, a part of GCHQ, based on utterly false and highly defamatory allegations.”

Leading left MP John McDonnell has tabled a Commons motion seeking an independent probe into Labour Together, and Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle has indicated his sympathy.