LABOUR MP Ian Byrne got to the heart of the Mandelson crisis in the Commons on Wednesday. Namely, he made the point that it is in fact a Mandelson-McSweeney-Labour Together scandal and the measures taken by the government in the wake of the New Labour grandee’s disgrace only scratch the surface of what is needed.

Byrne told MPs that the row over Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador to Washington in December 2024 “was not just a catastrophic error of judgment that has caused profound damage to this government’s reputation.

“It was the result of a clique at the top of the party, as we have seen with the Morgan McSweeney and Labour Together scandal, which I and colleagues … have called on the Prime Minister and the general secretary of the Labour Party to launch an independent investigation into.”

Socialist Campaign Group secretary Richard Burgon underlined the point, asking how Mandelson was even considered for the Washington job. 

“It is because it suited the interests of a tiny faction in the Labour Party, funded by big business, which wanted Mandelson at the heart of things in order to shift a Labour government away from the agenda that a real Labour government should have. 

“That is why Mandelson was popular with these people … and that is why, despite his despicable character, despite his greed and his avarice, he was put in that position.”

Even the Tories got in on the act, with shadow spokesman Alex Burghart pointing out that the whole scandal arose “because his then chief of staff was Mandelson’s protege. Morgan McSweeney had set up Labour Together, the Prime Minister’s private campaigning organisation. 

“Peter Mandelson had advised Morgan McSweeney on the establishment of that organisation, which had been responsible for breaking electoral law so that it could hide the sources of its funds from the public and from the Labour Party. Labour Together then sought to intimidate and smear journalists who revealed that wrongdoing,” he told MPs.

That is one of the larger truths underlying the scandal. This was a factional move by the right-wing clique with which Mandelson has been identified for 40 years and of which McSweeney was the latest product.

They wanted Mandelson back on the political front line precisely because he was the Labour figure above all others who put fawning on the rich and powerful at the centre of politics.

His flaws, which crystallised around his relationship with paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein, were not a bug but a feature. 

The former ambassador has denied any criminality, or of acting for financial gain.

Mandelson and McSweeney have now departed office. But their influence within the party and government remains.

Indeed, it is reported that at former chief of staff McSweeney’s leaving drinks in a Westminster pub, the Prime Minister hailed him as the greatest political strategist in the world!

Given Labour’s extinction-level polling position and the complete collapse of popular support for the government that is akin to hailing the military genius of Field Marshal Haig.

But it attests to the continuing influence of the nefarious Labour Together faction — several of its alumni, including Shabana Mahmood, Steve Reed and Lisa Nandy, continue to serve in Starmer’s Cabinet.

And the Labour Party resolutely refuses to examine the conduct and functioning of Labour Together, even though its activities include breaking electoral law, paying private investigators to harass journalists, and engineering, through its factional connections, the disastrous Mandelson appointment.

Worse than all of that, however, is the fact that Mandelson and McSweeney have been the main advocates for the poisonous direction of Labour under Starmer. For that alone, their influence should be immediately excised.