Starmer’s Chief of Staff and £700k ‘admin error’: Bombshell leaked email shows top Labour lawyer advised PM’s aide Morgan McSweeney to describe £700,000 in ‘hidden’ donations as a ‘mistake’

A leaked email has revealed that a top Labour lawyer advised Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, to describe nearly £740,000 in undeclared donations as an “administrative error.”

The revelation reignites a long-running controversy surrounding Labour Together, the think tank McSweeney once led, which was fined in 2021 for 20 breaches of electoral law over undeclared donations.

According to the email, lawyer Gerald Shamash—who describes himself as “solicitor to the Labour Party”—warned McSweeney to abandon his claim that the Electoral Commission had told him the donations did not need to be declared. Shamash cautioned that unless McSweeney could produce evidence of such advice, the argument would likely antagonize investigators. Instead, he suggested framing the issue as a “simple admin error.”

The full email, obtained by the Daily Mail and later published by the Conservatives, has intensified calls for a police probe. Tory chairman Kevin Hollinrake accused McSweeney of being “caught red-handed hiding hundreds of thousands of pounds which helped install Keir Starmer as Labour leader,” branding the scandal “potentially criminal.”

Despite the uproar, Downing Street said the Prime Minister retains “full confidence” in his chief of staff, a stance the Conservatives claim exposes Starmer’s “poor judgment” and raises “serious questions about his integrity.”

A Pattern of Controversy

McSweeney, architect of Labour’s recent landslide election victory and widely regarded as Starmer’s right-hand man, has faced mounting scrutiny. Labour MPs have voiced unease over poor polling figures, and his role in advising Starmer to nominate Lord Mandelson for US ambassador—despite Mandelson’s controversial ties to Jeffrey Epstein—has drawn heavy criticism.

The fresh leak also threatens to reopen wounds Labour had hoped to bury. In 2021, the Electoral Commission fined Labour Together £14,250 after finding that donations worth £739,492 were declared late. Records show that McSweeney initially filed donations when he became director in 2017 but stopped reporting them from early 2018, with the exception of a single £12,500 contribution.

It wasn’t until his departure in 2020—when he joined Starmer’s leadership team—that his successor, Hannah O’Rourke, uncovered nearly three years’ worth of undeclared donations and rushed to file them retrospectively.

The Lawyer’s Warning

In the leaked February 2021 message, Shamash admitted there was “no easy way to explain” how Labour Together had failed to declare such sums. He noted that while McSweeney claimed he had been verbally told by the Commission he didn’t need to report the donations, no record of such a conversation existed.

Shamash urged that unless McSweeney could prove otherwise, Labour Together’s best defense was to insist the breaches resulted from administrative oversight, a position that aligned with the think tank’s later public statement.

Pressure Mounts

The revelations add fresh pressure on McSweeney, especially given that during the same period, Labour Together was offering Starmer polling data and strategic support—resources worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Downing Street has declined to clarify McSweeney’s role during this period, though the Commission has maintained it already investigated the breaches in 2021 and issued the appropriate sanctions.

For now, Starmer’s loyalty to his embattled aide remains firm—but with renewed Tory demands for both police and Electoral Commission inquiries, the affair shows no signs of fading quietly.