Downing Street faces police probe over £700,000 in Labour donations, alleging McSweeney concealed funds to aid Starmer

Downing Street faced the threat of a police investigation after the Conservative Party alleged that the prime minister's chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, concealed more than £700,000 in donations intended to bolster Keir Starmer's political career. The Tories say private legal advice received by McSweeney points to a deliberate attempt to mislead the Electoral Commission over money given to Labour Together, the think tank that helped propel Starmer to the leadership and later play a role in reshaping Labour.

The Electoral Commission previously found more than 20 breaches by Labour Together and fined the group £14,250 in September 2021, after explicitly telling McSweeney in 2017 that donations must be declared within a 30-day window. Yet dozens of donations made to Labour Together between 2018 and July 2020 were not declared until after McSweeney left the organisation in 2020. The Conservatives say the private advice to McSweeney contradicts Labour Together's public claim that the reporting failures were due to human error and administrative oversight and that the group was as open and transparent as possible.

McSweeney initially disclosed donations to Labour Together when he took over as director in 2017. However, in early 2018 he stopped reporting donations—apart from a single disclosure of £12,500 from Trevor Chinn, a businessman and ally of Tony Blair. It was only after McSweeney left to work for Starmer as Labour leader that his successor, Hannah O'Rourke, discovered almost three years of unreported donations totaling £739,000 and filed a sequence of late declarations with the Commission. Downing Street has said it will not comment beyond directing inquiries to Labour Together, as the controversy intensifies over fundraising disclosures and the integrity of party financing.

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The row comes ahead of the publication next month of a book claiming new details about McSweeney's role in Labour Together. The Fraud, by journalist Paul Holden, is expected to include a detailed account of the chief of staff's involvement with the think tank. Advance details from the book have already prompted the resignation of Paul Ovenden, the prime minister's director of political strategy, over remarks made about Mr Corbyn's former partner and ally. A Labour Together spokesman said the organization had proactively raised concerns about its own reporting to the Electoral Commission in 2020, cooperating fully with an investigation completed in 2021 and acknowledging the outcome.

The Electoral Commission said it had thoroughly investigated Labour Together’s late reporting in 2021 and found failures occurred without reasonable excuse. It noted that offences were determined and sanctioned accordingly. The controversy extends beyond donations to Labour Together, touching on broader questions about how political actors in and around Downing Street have handled fundraising and reporting obligations during the Starmer era.

The controversy also touches on separate claims connected to McSweeney’s broader political operations. The notes circulating in the political press describe a campaign to secure Rupert Murdoch’s invitation to a state banquet at a time when Rupert Murdoch’s media holdings are under scrutiny elsewhere. The reports describe McSweeney lobbying organizers to seat Murdoch at the event, a move framed by some as an effort to influence media coverage and access. No 10 said invitations to the state banquet are a matter for the Royal Household, while a royal source indicated the list was coordinated among the UK side and the White House before finalizing allocations. A News UK source said Murdoch was delighted and honored to be invited.

The McSweeney affair unfolds amid wider political turbulence within Starmer’s inner circle. Mandelson, once seen as a close ally, was removed from his post as a U.S. ambassador amid controversy tied to Epstein-related links, further complicating the narrative around Labour’s leadership team and its long-term fundraising strategy. The book’s forthcoming revelations have already triggered introspection inside Labour and drawn scrutiny from opposition parties about how donations were sourced and reported during the transition to Starmer’s leadership.

Alongside these financing questions, the political environment has been shaped by internal leadership reshuffles and public debates over the balance between openness in donations and protecting donor anonymity. The parties involved have stressed that processes around declaration were designed to ensure transparency, while critics say the recent disclosures point to deeper systemic issues in political finance at the highest levels of activity surrounding Starmer’s ascent. As legal and parliamentary inquiries proceed, observers say the situation could test the resilience of Labour’s fundraising framework and the credibility of its public commitments to reform.