3 hours ago
5
For some Labour MPs, the sight of Keir Starmer accepting the resignation of his long-term consigliere, Morgan McSweeney, encapsulated everything they think is going wrong with the prime minister’s leadership.
After days of mounting criticism over McSweeney’s role in advocating for the appointment of Peter Mandelson as Washington ambassador, the prime minister’s chief of staff left Downing Street on Sunday.
But while his departure was welcomed by some of the prime minister’s critics, others felt it displayed the kind of political passivity which they say has characterised Starmer’s time in office.
“The idea of Morgan being allowed to resign makes the PM look even weaker,” one MP said. “He should have sacked him – now he risks going down with Morgan.”
McSweeney enjoyed a level of access and power in Downing Street unseen since the days of Dominic Cummings under Boris Johnson.
Some believe it was McSweeney who, as head of the thinktank Labour Together, picked Starmer out as the leader for his centrist movement, rather the other way round.
McSweeney’s influence was so all-encompassing that one Labour source was quoted in a recent book as saying Starmer thought he was driving the train when actually he had been placed at the front of the driverless Docklands Light Railway.
To his supporters, McSweeney was the political genius who oversaw the overthrow of the hard left, the rise of Starmer as leader, and eventually, the historic landslide election victory of 2024.
They argue his resignation shows his determination to protect the prime minister despite the fact that it was Starmer’s ultimate decision to appoint Mandelson.
“There were plenty of people pushing Mandelson’s appointment,” one said. “What a tragedy that only the person providing advice has the guts to front it up.”
Another added: “We all owe Morgan an immense debt of gratitude. He single-handedly dragged us back to electability and propelled us into government. We would still be facing irrelevance or even extinction without him.”
Critics, however – many of them Labour MPs – say McSweeney ran a male-dominated cabal at the heart of Downing Street that ignored the opinions of elected members and prioritised battling the left over governing.
They say McSweeney’s determination to champion the credentials of his former mentor Mandelson shows that he valued favouring his friends and political fellow travellers over serving the prime minister’s best interests.
They also see the recent revelation that Labour Together – the thinktank McSweeney once led – once commissioned an investigation into journalists reporting on its funding as further evidence of a culture of unethical behaviour.
“It is very consistent with the cowboy behaviour of Morgan,” said one Labour MP, referring to the Labour Together investigation, which McSweeney did not commission but has not denied knowing about. “There is a pattern of pretty indefensible behaviour.”
Clive Lewis, the Labour MP for Norwich South, said: “Morgan McSweeney’s resignation should not be treated as a cleansing moment. He was not an aberration. He was the tip of an iceberg.
“What he represents is a political culture that has dominated Labour for a generation. A culture forged under Blair and Mandelson that taught the party to be relaxed about extreme wealth, comfortable in the orbit of billionaires, lobbyists and corporate power, and increasingly detached from the lives of the people it was created to represent.”
McSweeney’s departure should relieve pressure on Starmer in the short term. His sacking was one of the main demands of the Tribune group of MPs from the soft left.
But some believe that it also removes an important obstacle to the eventual downfall of Starmer himself. Without his right-hand man around, the prime minister will have to accept a greater share of the blame should Labour lose the Gorton and Denton byelection and face heavy losses at the subsequent local elections.
“Keir has nobody left to blame, he has lost his firewall,” said one MP. “But then, maybe McSweeney’s departure also removes the need for a firewall.”
Luke Sullivan, Starmer’s former head of political strategy, said: “This is a big moment, but I don’t know how it helps other than buying Starmer some time.
“Morgan is a lightning rod – some people think he’s a genius, others that he’s to blame for everything. I don’t think any individual can be under pressure as much as this if they’re not an elected politician.”
One thing is certain: with leadership speculation already at fever pitch, those pushing to oust the prime minister are unlikely to be deterred.
“Like a wounded animal, this government will drag itself away as it’s hacked at and pecked at till it expires, probably after the May locals,” said one leftwing Labour backbencher. “By then Starmer can resign on the the grounds of those losses and not the reputational disaster of Epstein and Mandelson.
“It won’t matter though. Starmer will go down as the worst PM in Labour history and one that may have finally broken it. He’s a coward who refuses to take responsibility for his own actions. He is a moral gravity-well from which neither decency, honesty or integrity can escape. A genuine disaster for this country and the Labour movement.”
