Starmer Bows to Politics by Making Morgan McSweeney His Top Aide

(Bloomberg) — Keir Starmer has endured a rough first three months in power, with his administration overwhelmed by controversies over donations, infighting and mounting gloom about the UK’s public finances. On Sunday, he finally turned to the architect of Labour’s landslide election victory to try to put things right.
The sudden appointment of Morgan McSweeney to replace Sue Gray, who the prime minister had plucked from a senior role in Britain’s bureaucracy to steer his government, was a brutal move that underscored how much the government was already in need of a full reset. People in Labour also see it as Starmer realizing his office needs more political edge — something the premier isn’t particularly known for — after weeks of negative media coverage.
“Politics is back” in 10 Downing Street, said John McTernan, a former adviser to Labour’s totemic ex-premier Tony Blair.
The new Downing Street team led by McSweeney would provide clearer political direction, a better-defined strategy and more cohesive relations between advisers, people who work with him and welcomed his appointment told Bloomberg on condition of anonymity. He is said to want a relentless focus on winning the next election, due in 2029, by ensuring the Tories and the right-wing Reform UK Party led by Nigel Farage cannot accuse Labour of failing on crime, immigration and sensible stewardship of the public finances.
It effectively makes McSweeney the prime minister’s political antenna, now with the authority to run his operation. Starmer, a career lawyer who entered Westminster relatively late, has a technocratic style and favors a government based on competent management of the economy and public services rather than big political narratives. He is said to find daily politicking and 24-hour news coverage frustrating, preferring to focus on his administrative duties.
It’s why he had chosen Gray, a career civil servant who understood how to get things done in Whitehall, in the first place. But Gray’s enemies accused her of failing to manage Labour’s transition from opposition to government, and said her lack of political experience had contributed to Starmer’s inability to shake questions about the free gifts had accepted from wealthy Labour peer Waheed Alli. Amid the furor, Starmer’s personal approval rating has plummeted.
It is down to McSweeney to ensure that the last three months are an early blip rather than a turbulent period that will undermine the rest of his premiership. As Labour’s campaign chief, McSweeney set strategy and messaging. But while he may not have Gray’s experience of day-to-day governing, he is more street-smart and will anticipate political problems and opportunities, the people said.
The 47-year-old grew up in Macroom in County Cork, Ireland, and moved to London when he was 17, working on building sites before attending Middlesex University. Inspired by the Blair government’s achievement in brokering peace in Northern Ireland, he joined the Labour party in the wake of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, working in the party’s head office as an intern. 
His early work as a political strategist came when he led Labour’s campaigns in the London district of Lambeth, retaking control of the council from the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats and defeating the hard-left “Militant” grouping that had taken over Labour in that area.
He impressed colleagues in defeating the far-right in Barking and Dagenham in the late 2000s, when the British National Party was gaining a foothold in the London district in search of their first parliamentary seat. McSweeney’s campaign focused on local, everyday issues over a period of years, and the BNP was convincingly defeated by Labour in the 2010 general election. 
Other ventures were less successful. He ran Liz Kendall’s leadership campaign in 2015, when the now work and pensions secretary came last in a contest won by socialist Jeremy Corbyn.
While many abandoned Labour following Corbyn’s win — not least Blair, who declared the party “lost” forever — McSweeney believed it could be brought back to the political center. He founded the think tank Labour Together, branded at the time as a broad church for people across the movement. 
Following two election defeats under Corbyn, McSweeney masterminded Starmer’s campaign to be leader. That contest was fought along left-wing ideas, but under McSweeney’s guidance, Starmer pivoted to the center after winning, and expelled Corbynism — and Corbyn himself — from the party.
Ahead of the July election, McSweeney was also instrumental in jettisoning or scaling back policies, including expensive but popular ones like the green energy transition, to reduce targets for opponents to attack. Labour’s campaign was fought on a promise not to raise major taxes and to guard the economy and public finances, and it delivered a historic majority for Starmer to govern with.
Labour aides see McSweeney as close to Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves, and his appointment as Starmer’s chief of staff could help the premier’s relations with Treasury. McSweeney’s wife, Imogen Walker, is a new Labour lawmaker and has been appointed as a parliamentary aide to Reeves.
But those perceived ties also frustrated some members of Starmer’s senior ministerial team while Labour was in opposition, with McSweeney and Reeves seen as blocking more ambitious policy ideas.
Critics have also pointed out that ruling out major revenue raisers in the campaign has tied the government’s hands ahead of what is expected to be a painful budget on Oct. 30. Reeves’s negative messaging about the £22 billion ($28.8 billion) fiscal black hole she said she inherited from the Conservatives was seen in the party as an extension of McSweeney’s approach.
Those arguments contributed to the infighting that ultimately cost Gray her job, and her allies have accused McSweeney of seeking to oust her in a power struggle for Starmer’s ear. McSweeney and a handful of other male aides in Starmer’s office became known as “the boys,” setting off the first round of skirmishes with Gray as she tried to curb their influence.
The turmoil has raised the stakes for Starmer, especially as his pitch during the election was a promise of stability after 14 years of Tory-led governments. Rather than knocking heads together or finding an elegant solution to keep both aides in place, Starmer opted for one all-powerful political appointee. He’ll now need McSweeney to stay out of the headlines to restore a semblance of calm. 
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