By Andy Walker
Alison Phillips, who oversaw ThinkLabour’s rebrand from the disgraced Labour Together, is Andy Burnham’s new deputy chief of staff – the latest sign that Morgan McSweeney’s old faction still holds sway in Downing Street, despite the prime minister’s promises to govern beyond factional lines.
The news that Andy Burnham has appointed ThinkLabour CEO Alison Phillips as his new deputy chief of staff and Downing Street’s transition director has set further alarm bells ringing about the continued involvement of the discredited Labour Together faction at the heart of government.
ThinkLabour was formerly known as Labour Together, the Blairite think tank closely associated with the right wing of the Labour Party. Founded in June 2015 with the initial aim of bridging Labour factions, it quickly switched its focus to opposing the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn and later supported Keir Starmer in the 2020 Labour Party leadership election. Labour Together’s leading architect of course was Morgan McSweeney.
Phillips, a lobbyist and former journalist who edited the Daily Mirror between 2018 and 2024, took over as Labour Together CEO in November last year and led the organisation’s reorganisation and rebrand to ThinkLabour. That Burnham has handed such an important Downing Street role to someone so clearly linked to a ruthless, right-wing political project headed by McSweeney speaks for itself.
Labour Together failed to declare £730,000 of donations from millionaire venture capitalists and businessmen between 2017 and 2020 and the organisation was fined and found guilty of over 20 separate breaches of the law. In 2025 it was reported that they had paid private investigators to run a smear campaign against prominent journalists investigating ‘Operation Red Shield’, Labour Together’s campaign to marginalise the Labour left.
The Times later revealed that Labour Together also paid £36,000 to American public relations firm APCO to discredit journalist Gabriel Pogrund – and by extension The Sunday Times – by falsely suggesting its journalists might be part of a Russian conspiracy or had relied on emails hacked by the Russian government.
Investigating journalists
Josh Simons, the man who gave up his Makerfield parliamentary seat to help Andy Burnham get elected to parliament and then take over the Labour leadership, was a former director and a key player in Labour Together.
He resigned his ministerial positions on 28 February 2026, following media reports that he had been responsible for investigating the private affairs of journalists who had published an article unfavourable to Labour Together, and amid accusations that he named the reporters to British intelligence, falsely linking them to pro-Russian propaganda.
As detailed in Paul Holden’s brilliant book, The Fraud, McSweeney’s Labour Together clique often employed dirty tricks to undermine the left-wing Labour leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, fuelling a moral panic over antisemitism and establishing front groups that hobbled prominent independent media outlets in the name of fighting ‘misinformation’.
McSweeney then guided Starmer to the Labour leadership on a platform that Starmer, once in office, almost instantly betrayed. Having conquered the party on false pretences, McSweeney and his allies set about purging opponents, marginalising the membership and dragging party policy to the right.
Despite the new prime minister’s pledge to end factionalism and use the talents of the whole parliamentary party, not one single representative of the Labour left has been appointed to any cabinet role. Burnham’s warm words in this area are not being backed up by his actions – and the appointment of the former CEO of a notorious, widely exposed Labour faction is a stark illustration of why.
Labour Together is reported to have given donations totalling £1.5m to over 100 different Labour MPs, ranging from £5,000 to £137,168. The organisation may have changed its name to ThinkLabour in May this year – a ‘rebrand’ overseen by someone now occupying a leadership role at the heart of Downing Street – but its Labour Together roots are still there for all to see.
[First published on the website, Left Lane and republished here with the author’s permission]
