In 2020, Keir Starmer stood for the Labour Party leadership and made ten excellent democratic socialist pledges to the party membership and the thousands of trades unionists who had enthusiastically voted for him. On 4 April 2020, Starmer was elected Labour leader. Of course, all was not as it seemed. Starmer had committed a fraud. In our podcast Paul Holden reveals exactly what Morgan McSweeney’s Labour Together had planned for the Labour membership – and it certainly wasn’t the democratic socialism they’d voted for!
Back in 2023, Labour Together included prominent soft left figures such as Lucy Powell, Jon Cruddas and Lisa Nandy. Former Labour Left Podcast guest Neil Lawson of Mainstream was assiduously courted by Labour Together. Starmer even employed old Corbyn staffer Simon Fletcher and Momentum’s former national coordinator, Laura Parker, was persuaded to back the Starmer leadership bid.
In the podcast Paul and I discuss what was really going on. Did Labour Together and the Starmer project have a split personality or were the erstwhile socialist Starmerites subject to a big con?
Even before the book was published, Steve Reed, Labour’s housing secretary, suggested in Politico that the book “would whitewash” the antisemitism crisis that happened under Jeremy Corbyn. In the podcast Paul Holden give’s his response to Reed’s disgraceful allegation.
In the second half of the podcast, Holden explores the suggestion that Labour Together’s internal authoritarianism is spilling over into government. Could Labour Together’s factionalism have created the conditions that explain the removal of Sue Gray, the Downing Street chief of staff? The appointment of Peter Mandelson as US Ambassador? The proscription of Palestine Action? The attacks on refugee status? And, even the undermining of jury trials?
Every Labour supporter also needs to know the story of what Labour Together did when they learnt Paul was to publish The Fraud. He tells me a chilling story of GCHQ involvement, spy allegations, Russian scare stories and ministerial resignations.
Click here to listen to the Labour Left Podcast interview with Paul Holden. Or click below to watch the interview on YouTube.
This article is republished with the permission of the Labour Hub website.
