Following “Left Out”, Gabriel Pogrun and Patrick Maguire’s authoritative rendition of Labour’s years in opposition under Jeremy Corbyn, the pair have produced its long-awaited sequel: “Get In”. This book covers Keir Starmer’s entry into the 2020 Labour leadership contest until his ascension to the premiership in 2024.
It weaves a compelling narrative as it moves through his “tough” 2021 where he contemplated resignation amid strong post-lockdown Tory polling, to his Partygate PMQs masterclasses, applying legalistic rigour against that formerly-dominant Prime Minister in 2022. It paints the picture of Labour’s struggle to get back into government, finally overturning 14 years of Conservative rule with a landslide (if thin) general election victory.
But Starmer isn’t the central figure of “Get In”. Instead, it is Morgan McSweeney – the Labour Party’s campaigning mastermind-cum-chief of staff – who gets the biographical attention. His political development in the 2000s and 2010s, not Starmer’s career as Director of Public Prosecutions or his time on the backbench, truly gets Pogrund and Maguire’s attention. Starmer is painted as a lackey, a useful figure with credibility with the left (unlike Rachel Reeves and others) from his service as shadow Brexit Secretary under Corbyn, but who was of the right of the party.
McSweeney is said by Pogrun and Maguire to significantly influence Starmer’s major decisions. This includes Starmer’s scrapping of his leadership pledges, his expulsion of Jeremy Corbyn, and his harshness towards the party’s left. The greatest signs of his influence were the briefing campaigns against Sue Gray, pushing her out after only a few months, and the ruthlessness McSweeney demonstrated as he allegedly pressured Lou Haigh to resign over an issue that the party was already aware of.
Ed Miliband has been subject to prolonged pressure over past stances in a bid to ensure his support for the Government’s programme, particularly over issues such as Syria and a third runway at Heathrow. Richard Hermer, the otherwise-compliant Attorney General raised to the Lords specifically by Starmer, is the latest target, anonymously accused of confusing personal opinion for legal judgment and dredging up unpopular prior clients.
Outside of his extensive engagement with the authors, Mr McSweeney is not a public figure. He maintains no real social media presence and has not been publicly identified as the cause of recent ministerial removals. Nonetheless, there are few figures in No.10 with such direct access to the Prime Minister, able to affect such changes in prime ministerial opinion.
In short, McSweeney is not just the man behind the Starmer project — he is the Starmer project, according to Pogrund and Maguire. Prominent advisors aren’t new to British politics: now-podcaster Alastair Campbell and failed Oxford Chancellor candidate Peter Mandelson were seen to be vital to the New Labour movement; Fiona Hill and Nick Timothy were great influences over Theresa May’s disastrous 2017 election; Dominic Cummings ran No.10 under Johnson until a scenic “eye test” brought his career crashing down. But McSweeney is clearly different in his prominence. Why?
He faces little ideological challenge from within the party and the leadership. Given the circumstances, it seems that there’s little to push against him. Keir Starmer might have been influenced to shift his policy pretences, but unlike New Labour, Attlee, Wilson, and even international figures of the left like Mitterand, Hawke or Keating, he has very little commitment to any policy vein. Starmer had a short career of five years in Parliament before he ascended to the leadership and had spent a career in the civil service before this.
The Labour Right, devoid of the reforming focus of the New Labour project and its 80’s predecessors, returned to its traditional focus, conceding some progressivism in favour of cautious economics and pragmatism. Sharing significant values with the campaigning maestro, much of the Labour movement saw, and sees, McSweeney as a driving force, who helped bring about the end of fourteen years of Conservative rule.
Both he and Starmer have delivered a government that, despite its fair share of mistakes, continues to poll above the Conservatives and is head-to-head with Reform, whilst embarking on significant plans for the economy, labour rights, railways, energy and housing.
Given the current media attention, commentators question how long Starmer will put up with being seen as the puppet of his Chief of Staff. Overzealous chiefs of staff might hold great power, but at the end of the day, it is Starmer who is Prime Minister, and it is his Cabinet, who were elected MPs on a Labour manifesto. McSweeney has not got an elected mandate; it’s the very nature of his job as Chief of Staff.
Looking forward, if McSweeney’s star grows so great that it begins to eclipse the PM, or pushes Starmer too far away from his legalistic nature, recent history suggests a truly spectacular ruction might break out on Downing Street.
After that? All bets are off.