The Fraud: Keir Starmer, Morgan McSweeney and the Crisis of British Democracy
Paul Holden, OR Books, £19.99

FOR anyone who thought that the Labour Party could be the vehicle of positive change in Britain this will be an eye-opening and tough read. It will raise fundamental questions about the prospect of the party being a meaningful vehicle for positive change, or even as a social democratic force at all.

Paul Holden’s experience of digging through the files, finding the evidence and asking the right questions is impressive. His prior work involved investigating corruption and state capture in his native South Africa. The evidence uncovered led to significant legal proceedings which to date has recovered close to a billion dollars. Holden also worked with Andrew Feinstein on the book and documentary Shadow World (Penguin, 2012) which examined the global arms trade.

This work has not been without peril. Holden reveals that he had to be particularly careful about who he talks to, and keeping away from social media. Private detectives have been sent to sniff around his personal and private life looking for leads that could discredit his work.

It’s been clear for a long time that the 2015-2020 Labour Party was riven by bitter factional disputes. In short, there was a pro-business, Blairite right-wing which held the organisational levers of power and had been in the driving seat for many decades. It regards neoliberalism as plain common sense.

This faction was particularly alarmed by the explosion of member-driven popular support for the mild social democratic policies put forward by Jeremy Corbyn from 2015. The grass-roots support for Corbyn saw the latter see off many challenges to his leadership until it was finally undone by the 2019 general election.

In The Fraud, Holden examines the period from the Corbyn to the Starmer leaderships. It covers ground familiar to readers of Asa Winstanley’s Weaponising Antisemitism, but also covers the full scope of the Starmer project, from anti-semitism and Brexit to Gaza. The book is replete with numerous plots and scandals, too many to itemise in one review, but some of which one hopes other journalists will pursue to their conclusions.

Holden focuses on Labour Together, an organisation created in 2015 with the stated intention of bridging Labour’s factions. This misdirection is only one of many frauds concocted by the Labour right. Rather than a bridge, Labour Together became a dagger to assassinate the left.

Morgan McSweeney, now the No 10 Chief of Staff, used Labour Together to secretly tear down “the Hard Left.” This involved actively preventing a Labour government under Corbyn by reducing funding in marginal seats, and encouraging the antisemitism crisis. Labour Together was deeply involved in setting up an astroturf (fake grassroots) organisation: the Centre for Countering Digital Hate which itself ran the campaign Stop Funding Fake News (SFFN), the latter memorably engaging Rachel Riley as a key influencer.

Labour Together was funded by influential business interests including hedge fund manager Martin Taylor and Trevor Chinn, the pro-Israel businessman and ubiquitous funder of Labour candidates. McSweeney failed to notify the Electoral Commission of Labour Together donations; despite his evident ability to organise, that did not extend to managing the organisation within the law. Ultimately Labour Together had their wrists slapped with a modest fine, while the substantial political rewards of its machinations had already accrued.

Labour Together campaigns worked closely with Labour Against Antisemitism, an organisation that would conduct deep-dives into individuals’ social media history and then launch a complaint to Labour demanding expulsion. Very often this meant the targeting non-zionist or left-wing Jews by non-Jews over claims of anti-semitism, Miriam Margoyles being a notable example.

When failure to win the 2019 election put an end to the Corbyn leadership, Labour Together transformed itself into the leadership campaign for Keir Starmer. In order to win, Starmer needed the votes of the predominately left-wing membership and yet another fraud was committed, with Starmer cosplaying as a pro-nationalisation eco-socialist, only to bin his now infamous pledges shortly after winning.

Holden points out that a critical examination of Starmer’s record as Director of Public Prosecutions might have raised some warnings, in particular his conduct in the cases of Ian Tomlinson, Gary Mackinnon and Julian Assange. Criticism was absent in the mainstream press, but was covered in The Canary, a new-ish news site popular with Labour Party members. The Canary itself was taken down by a demonetising campaign orchestrated through SFFN that targeted its advertisers.

The factional battle in the Labour Party escalated as soon as Starmer’s feet were under the table. Members were investigated and expelled at a huge rate, and CLPs denied the powers to debate issues and select their MP candidates. Campaign organisations become “proscribed” and involvement, even before proscription, becomes automatic expulsion. Influential members including Ken Loach and Corbyn himself were excluded.

Yet further fraud was committed in the 2024 general election. While Labour was massively assisted by an imploding Conservative Party, the election pledges, watered down such as they were by this time, failed to materialise as soon as a “black hole” was identified in the UK accounts: winter fuel payments would have to go and the two-child benefit cap would have to stay. Austerity politics remained in place.

Despite being central to the book not much is clear about the role played by McSweeney. Indeed, it appears that he made an effort to not be the story. But it is clear that his organising and strategising was supported and funded by big businesses, often with a clear pro-zionist ideological bias.

The picture painted of the Labour Party gives serious cause for concern about its future. No-one of the Labour Together project appear to have asked themselves what kind of party it is that sees its own membership as a problem, and offers nothing to key constituencies that are supposed to vote for it.

Tony Benn famously described the Labour Party as a party with socialists in it. But what is the Labour right for? In power its policies are indistinguishable from its conservative predecessor and its factional control is ruthless.

Questions arise for members of the Labour Party. Why would one join a party where being a member means only paying subs and having no voice? Why would one join a party which is itself host to the enemies not only of socialism but of mild social democratic reform? Why would anyone on the left join an organisation that required you to battle the party bureaucracy before you could battle the true political opposition?

Is the Labour Party is a bastion of the ruling class, and nothing but the continuity Conservative Party? Is it only there to give the illusion of change? Unions will need to consider why they continue to fund such a party alongside big business interests.

Holden’s work leaves many threads dangling. Lenin once suggested that the correct way to support Labour was the way a rope supports the hanging man. Perhaps some of these threads might best be used to make that rope.