Labour Together has snuck its way into the DWP

The sabotage outfit that put Keir Starmer into power, spied on journalists, and whose architect Morgan McSweeney recently resigned in disgrace from his role as the prime minister’s chief of staff, has spun the revolving door at Westminster once again. This time, a former director and senior staff member from the shady pressure group Labour Together have quietly wormed their way into the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

So now, its acolytes are in the prime position to shape this Labour Party government’s next callous plans for welfare claimants.

Labour Together grifters: now at the DWP

In December, Labour Together executive director Matthew Upton made like a reverse Ashworth running from constituent scrutiny and landed himself a new role at the DWP. There, he’s now ‘Principal Advisor’ to Alan Milburn’s stitch-up Young People and Work review.

The Canary previously highlighted Upton’s connection to investment (and former insurance) giant Aberdeen Group Plc. Upton was a trustee for its philanthropic research funding arm: arbdn Financial Fairness Trust. The now-defunct organisation financed a 2023 Fabian Society report that proposed a time-limited ‘unemployment insurance’ benefit. In reality though, it’s a trojan horse to do-away with new-style Employment Support Allowance (ESA). So naturally, the new Labour government has been all over the idea.

Upton also appeared next to the overpromoted Blair-era relic in a foreword for a September 2025 Labour Together briefing. Curiously, it was discussing the very same thing.

Hope the (revolving) door hits you on your way out…

Incidentally, that segues quite nicely to the next Labour Together grifter-come-dutiful-benefit-slashing-DWP-disciple. As of January, author of said report and Labour Together chief policy advisor Morgan Wild slid on over to his new position at Westminster. He’s now policy advisor to none other than current DWP benefit-reaper-in-chief himself: Pat McFadden.

Here’s what a New Statesman senior editor had to say about Wild’s appointment:

Spad news: Morgan Wild, Labour Together’s chief policy adviser, has become a policy adviser to Pat McFadden.

He’s a champion of the contributory principle, which will be a key feature of welfare reform. pic.twitter.com/NHk0WRN0QZ

— George Eaton (@georgeeaton) January 13, 2026

The ‘contributory principle’ holds that:

Our society only succeeds when people pay their taxes, care for their families and communities and are recognised for these contributions. Our economy only succeeds when people work, develop skills, take risks, and start businesses.

In other words, anyone who cannot work because of health issues, caring commitments, or any other reason is a workshy layabout who shouldn’t be supported to survive, but punished for existing.

In (not) unrelated news: the government’s recent so-called Fairer Pathway to Settlement consultation rattled off the words ‘contribution’ or ‘contribute’ no fewer than 72 times. Needless to say, the anti-immigration hostile environment is disgustingly alive and thriving at the racist DWP.

Guess who’s back?

And speaking of ex-Labour Together directors, Jonathan Ashworth was at the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) in Westminster – where it appears the washed-up former DWP sec now works as a senior fellow on “welfare, health, and addiction”.

Ashworth appeared in the Express recently, clamouring to be relevant and spouting trash about welfare ‘reform.’

He’s also claimed that disabled people are “being abandoned to health-related benefits”. He made the stigmatising remarks as part of the announcement for the CSJ’s Welfare 2030 enquiry launch.

Genius interpreter of the public mood and uncontestable political clairvoyant Ashworth is, he told the Express in early January:

I think Labour can turn this around, and I suspect, in a year’s time, if you come back to record me for a follow-up interview, I’ll bet you that Keir Starmer is still the Labour prime minister.

The previously tipped to-be Cabinet member will now be just a short hop and a skip away from Whitehall. Bang, smack in the heart of Westminster, the CSJ’s office is just a five minute walk from parliament.

So not only has Labour Together installed itself in the DWP, but it also has a former director positioned at a Tory-founded think tank that’s influencing the Labour government’s plans to decimate the welfare state.

Labour Together and the party of ‘work’

The intentions behind their appointments are obvious in the buzzword of the moment: ‘contribution’.

For his Welfare 2030 cameo, Ashworth was also crowing on about developing:

a system that values contribution, protects the most vulnerable, and helps thousands more people gain all of the advantages that come with work.

Chuck it alongside vitriol around ‘economic inactivity’ and you have a winning recipe for ripping into the welfare state.

The clear insinuation is that a person’s worth is tied to their productivity inside the capitalist system. What this really means in practice, is that disabled lives are expendable. The fact that ‘cuts kill’ is of little consequence to Labour Together and its devotees.

But as the Canary has previously pointed out, this eugenicist thinking is the corporate fascist wing of the Party’s MO.

Labour Together still shaping the agenda

Suffice to say that despite McSweeney’s departure from Number 10, Labour Together still has its claws in shaping this government’s brutal policy programme.

And Upton and Wild’s appointments wouldn’t be the first instance of the Labour right think tank driving the DWP’s austerity agenda.

As the Canary previously exposed, Labour Together and its donors funded nearly every single one of the ‘Get Britain Working’ group of Labour MPs. In March 2025, it sprung up to back Rachel Reeves and Liz Kendall’s vicious disability benefit cuts.

The clincher that Labour Together has had its grimy mitts all over the DWP benefit cuts all along? As the Canary’s Steve Topple highlighted before, it was Morgan McSweeney who led ‘briefings’ in a bid to:

“win over” MPs for its package of atrocious austerity-driven cuts.

But ultimately, what it all underscores is how the Labour Together right-wing circus is still scattered right throughout this government. For all its smokescreen committees boasting disabled representation, these are the capitalist cronies this government is really listening to.

Because at the end of the day, this rotten ableist ‘party of work’ rhetoric has always been at the Labour right’s very core. Upton and Wild’s new high-profile advisory roles at the DWP show that’s not about to change.

Featured image via author