Paul Holden: why I’ve given exclusive extracts of The Fraud to the Canary and Inside Croydon

Last month, I started releasing exclusive stories from my upcoming book, The Fraud: Keir Starmer, Morgan McSweeney and the Crisis of British Democracy.

The results were immediate.

In the first week, Paul Ovenden, Number 10’s director of strategy, resigned after I revealed his role in problematic chat messages, conducted via his Labour Party messaging system, about Diane Abbott.

The Fraud: explosive exposé tells the real story of Labour Together and Morgan McSweeney

The following week, I put out documents and stories that led to calls for the re-opening of investigations into Labour Together related to its failure to report donations totalling close to £740,000 to the Electoral Commission. Between mid-2017 and early 2020, Labour Together was the vehicle through which Morgan McSweeney, now chief of staff to the Prime Minister, waged a covert campaign to destroy the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn. This was done as a precursor to hand-picking a successor more to the liking of McSweeney’s right-wing faction: Sir Keir Starmer.

Not long after, I revealed that, starting in November 2023, Labour Together had hired a reputation management firm to investigate me, my family, and my colleagues. Labour Together hired the firm, and even reported me to the UK’s security services, after it became public that I was investigating McSweeney, Labour Together, its undisclosed donations – and what they were used for.

Campaigns to destroy the Canary and Inside Croydon

This week, I’ve released stories from The Fraud that expose how McSweeney and his close ally, Imran Ahmed, used their dodgy astroturf project, Stop Funding Fake News (SFFN), to launch a pan-Atlantic war on free speech in the US and UK while also intervening in the 2019 European Elections.

Part of this story, now told in full and without caveat in my book, involved SFFN launching a genuinely despicable campaign to demonetise the Canary, behind the veil of anonymity, because the Canary posed a threat to McSweeney’s political ambitions.

But the Canary was not the only outlet targeted by the people who now occupy major positions of power in the Labour government. Also targeted was an indefatigable local news outlet called Inside Croydon and its editor Steven Downes.

Inside Croydon reported on the politics of the borough of Croydon, the stomping ground of Steve Reed MP. It reported critically, but I believe accurately, on Reed and his local political allies, as well the Labour-led Croydon Council. Croydon Council declared effective bankruptcy in 2020 while under the control of the very same people Inside Croydon was reporting on.

Reed, as my book shows, was one of McSweeney’s closest collaborators, in addition to serving as a director of Labour Together for seven years between 2016 and 2023.

Using journalism to speak truth to power

The stories of the targeting of both Inside Croydon and the Canary are genuinely shocking. I believe they speak believe to a disturbing hostility towards independent media outlets, and independent journalists, conducting public-interest investigative journalism.

In the spirit of restorative justice, I have decided to release exclusive extracts from my book to the Canary and Inside Croydon. They are the first and only outlets I have granted the right to reproduce material from my book. I feel it is important that the Canary and Inside Croydon both get to relay their full stories, on their own sites, without any paywall, free for the public to read.

Personally, I can think of no better way for the Canary and Inside Croydon to finally get a modicum of much-delayed justice: by using journalism to speak truth to power.

The Fraud: Keir Starmer, Morgan McSweeney and the Crisis of British Democracy is available to purchase directly from www.orbooks.com from Monday 13 October. E-books will be instantly available to buy. Hard-copies bought via OR Books will be delivered directly from its warehouses and arrive shortly.

Featured image via the Canary