Feinstein, Holden demand Starmer admit what he knew about Labour Together spying

Authors Paul Holden and Andrew Feinstein — a former Mandela minister — have issued a statement demanding Keir Starmer come clean on what he knew about ‘Labour Together’s (LT) spying on them and other journalists. LT paid PR firm APCO to snoop on them as they were investigating LT’s sabotage, rigging and undeclared funding.

The pair were commenting in response to coverage in Democracy for Sale and the Financial Times that Starmer’s closest advisers were fully briefed on what LT and APCO were doing:

The articles in today’s media on Labour Together & the Labour Party’s investigation & surveillance of journalists including myself & my colleague Paul Holden, author of @StarmertheFraud, make it imperative that Starmer reveal exactly what he knew about these dirty tricks & when;… https://t.co/v4oGcWhIqa pic.twitter.com/MfFs1UDzSc

— Andrew Feinstein (@andrewfeinstein) May 20, 2026

In a joint statement demanding a full inquiry, Feinstein and Holden said that they had received “deeply disturbing” documents showing the “utterly false and highly defamatory” allegations LT and APCO made about them. The firms targeted family members, colleagues and friends — and the operation was run by Starmer’s party as well as by them.

And they say that the new coverage also blows apart the excuses and evasion of Starmer’s ministers and handlers about the spying:

Joint Statement: Paul Holden and Andrew Feinstein Regarding Labour Together, APCO and the Labour Party

On Wednesday last week we received documents from Labour Together following Subject Access Requests that we submitted to Labour Together in February 2026. The documents provided by Labour Together are deeply disturbing.

They show that Labour Together and APCO targeted us, our colleagues, our associates and Paul’s family with utterly false and highly defamatory allegations, and that this was done with the knowledge of the highest levels of the Labour Party. Indeed, we are now of the view that the operation to investigate us, our families and associates was effectively a joint operation run by the Labour Party, Labour Together and APCO.

This highly invasive campaign was launched because of Paul’s factually accurate reporting. This reporting raised serious questions about whether Labour Together and Morgan McSweeney deliberately failed to report £730,000 in donations to the Electoral Commission in violation of the law. It is now plain that Sir Keir Starmer benefited from the work funded by these donations and that they facilitated his rise to power.

We are calling for a full inquiry into Labour Together.

We also call on Sir Keir Starmer to clarify his role in this scandal. Considering the documents that have been disclosed to date, we find it nearly inconceivable that Sir Keir Starmer did not know about this despicable project that included Labour Together reporting us to the National Cyber Security Center (NCSC), a part of GCHQ, based on utterly false and highly defamatory allegations. These highly defamatory allegations were then shared with at least one major newspaper outlet.

The newly released documents reveal six important facts.

First, they show that Morgan McSweeney and Paul Ovenden were aware of the APCO and Labour Together investigation into us from at least January 2024. McSweeney was the Labour Party’s head of campaigns and subsequently Sir Keir Starmer’s Chief of Staff in Number 10. Paul Ovenden was the Director of Labour Party communications and subsequently Head of Strategy in Number 10.

The emails show Simons arranging a meeting between himself, Ovenden, McSweeney and Tom Harper, a senior APCO employee, to discuss the investigation into us. A third Labour employee was copied into the email, but, because of redactions, we do not know who this is. We ask the Labour Party to confirm who else was copied into this correspondence.

The excellent @PeterKGeoghegan and Democracy for Sale have confirmed with a Labour Party source that the intended meeting did take place.

Second, they show that APCO’s Tom Harper actively coached Josh Simons and Labour Together on how to submit a ‘crime complaint’ about us to the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), a part of GCHQ. Harper provided text for Simons to submit to the NCSC. The decision to complain about us to the NCSC was made only days after Simons had emailed McSweeney, Ovenden and Harper about APCO’s upcoming report into us, asking for a meeting to discuss its contents.

Third, Josh Simons has repeatedly claimed in public that he appointed APCO to investigate a ‘hack’ of Labour Together materials. But the new documents show that Labour Together and Simons did not conduct any meaningful cybersecurity review to establish whether materials had been hacked from Labour Together, or where else they may have been sourced from.

Labour Together did, however, appoint a cybersecurity expert to review a potential hack in late 2025. This review, a summary of which has now been disclosed to us, shows that there was no ‘hack’ of Labour Together. This is obviously true, as we have repeatedly explained that the investigation into Labour Together was based on documents legally leaked from the Labour Party by whistleblowers concerned about misconduct by the Party’s most senior officials, open-source materials, and Freedom of Information requests.

Fourth, they show that Josh Simons and Labour Together told the NCSC that they were reporting us because they were concerned that Paul’s reporting ‘may be a co-ordinated effort to discredit Labour Together in order to undermine Mr McSweeney and by extension, Mr. Starmer in the run-up to next year’s general election.’ It is our view that this joint Labour Together, Labour Party and APCO operation was launched because Paul’s factually accurate reporting would have shed light on the highly problematic and unlawful aspects of Sir Keir Starmer’s rise to power.

Fifth, they show that APCO had sent a ‘case summary’ to Josh Simons of Labour Together on the 20th of November 2020, on the basis of which APCO were contracted by Labour Together two days later. The ‘case summary’, setting out a proposed scope of work, clearly identified us as journalists. From the very beginning, therefore, APCO and Labour Together knew that they were looking to investigate journalists – the very journalists who were reporting accurately on Labour Together, Morgan McSweeney and undeclared donations.

Sixth, they show that Simons wrote to an unknown person at the Labour Party in November 2023 asking for ‘intel’ on us. This shows that Simons’ immediate response to announcement of Paul’s book was to seek the assistance of the Labour Party. At the time, we were both Labour Party members. The reply to Simons’ request has been redacted in our documents. We call on the Labour Party to release all documents to us relevant to this scandal, and to confirm whether Josh Simons, Labour Together or APCO were provided with any of our private, personal information.

It appears there are only three possibilities remaining. Starmer was either elbow-deep in Labour Together’s activities, or a complete puppet of those who were. Or, of course, both.

Featured image via Brook Mitchell — WPA Pool/Getty Images