Morgan McSweeney

Morgan James McSweeney (born April 1977) is the Downing Street Director of Communications for the Starmer ministry. Prior to July 2024, he was the campaign manager for the Labour Party and the former director of the think tank Labour Together.

In June 2024, New Statesman ranked McSweeney first on a list of the most influential left-wing figures in the UK, having described him in September 2023 as Keir Starmer's "most trusted aide". The Times stated in October 2023 that "nobody without elected office wields as much power in British politics as McSweeney."

Early life and education
McSweeney grew up in Macroom in County Cork, Ireland. Tim McSweeney, his father, was/is senior partner of an accounting firm, and his mother, Carmel McSweeney, was a bridge player. His aunt was a councillor for Fine Gael and his first cousin, Clare Mungovan, was special adviser to the Fine Gael leader Leo Varadkar as of October 2023. McSweeney played hurling as a child and was a mascot of the Macroom GAA Gaelic football team.

He migrated to London in 1994 aged 17, initially working on building sites and later attempting university, though he dropped out within 12 months. He tried a second time at age 21, studying marketing and politics at Middlesex University.

Political career
In 1997, motivated by backing for the Good Friday Agreement, McSweeney joined the Labour Party, and in 2001 he was hired to work as an intern receptionist and in the party's attack and rebuttal unit in Millbank where he input data into Peter Mandelson’s “Excalibur” database. Alan Milburn dispatched McSweeney to marginal seats to campaign for Labour in the 2005 general election.

He then moved on to campaign for Steve Reed for the 2006 Lambeth London Borough Council election, working to take control of the council from the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives, gaining a reputation as a "formidable organiser," according to The Guardian. Labour succeeded in the election, gaining the council from a previous Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition. McSweeney simultaneously ran as a council candidate in the 2006 Sutton London Borough Council election, which he lost with 149 votes. He then worked as chief of staff for Reed in Lambeth Council.

From 2008 until 2010, he campaigned with Evans, Jon Cruddas, Margaret Hodge and Hope not Hate against the British National Party in Barking and Dagenham, focusing on patriotism and crime as campaign points. This campaign succeeded in the 2010 general election, when Labour defeated the BNP in the borough. Cruddas later referred to McSweeney as "the real unsung hero of the whole thing". Following Labour's national defeat in the 2010 general election, he became head of the Labour Group Office at the Local Government Association.

In the 2015 Labour Party leadership election in September, McSweeney ran the leadership campaign of Liz Kendall who came fourth with 4.5% of the vote. He then spent another period in local government.

Director of Labour Together
McSweeney became director of the think tank group Labour Together in 2017, reporting to a board that included Reed, Lisa Nandy, Jon Cruddas and Trevor Chinn, and also serving as company secretary. During McSweeney's time at Labour Together, the group worked to poll Labour membership to determine a potential replacement of then leader Jeremy Corbyn. McSweeney found that it would be possible to peel away the soft left, younger "idealists" of Labour from Corbyn's support base, eventually picking Keir Starmer to do so. He composed a three-year plan for Starmer to become Prime Minister after taking control of the party, which involved first performing "immediate CPR" to reform the party's ranks (which included removing supporters of Corbyn and Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard and excluding them from future leadership contests), then secondly becoming an effective opposition in parliament by directly attacking the Conservatives on their failures, and lastly winning power by outwitting the Conservatives on crime, defence and the economy. He was then recruited to run Starmer's 2020 campaign for Labour leader, which Starmer won. McSweeney also set up the Center for Countering Digital Hate during this time, initially designed to target online antisemitism.

McSweeney fundraised for Labour Together during his role as company secretary, though stopped reporting the large majority of donations the group received from December 2017 onward, eventually failing to report more than £730,000 in funds within the 30 days required by law during his tenure. The undeclared donations as well as additional incorrect information declared by McSweeney were investigated by the Electoral Commission; Labour Together received a fine of £14,250 for over 20 breaches of electoral law in September 2021, which a spokesman for the Commission stated was "towards the high end of [the] scale".

Chief of Staff
Starmer succeeded in the 2020 Labour Party leadership election on 4 April 2020 with 56.2% of the vote and immediately picked McSweeney as his chief of staff, causing him to leave Labour Together. Following Labour's defeat in the 2021 Hartlepool by-election in May, he allegedly wrote on a whiteboard in Labour headquarters, "change Labour. Change Britain."

Following Labour's worst ever by-election performance in the 2021 Chesham and Amersham by-election in June and in anticipation of the July Batley and Spen by-election, Starmer moved McSweeney from his role as Chief of Staff to a "strategic role" in his office on 20 June, though he remained as Starmer's "number one adviser".

Director of Campaigns
McSweeney was appointed as Labour's director of campaigns in September 2021. He also worked to impose a new MP selection process for the Labour Party, centralising the longlisting of candidates which largely locked out left wing candidates and those connected to Corbyn's leadership. The Times has noted that "Those who question his authority inevitably find Starmer sides with McSweeney."

He is expected to lead preparations for the 2024 United Kingdom general election, with Scotland being a priority target for his campaign. McSweeney made contact with members of the US Democratic Party and Australian Labor Party, respectively Neera Tanden and Anthony Albanese, to discuss election tactics. He argued in a December 2023 shadow cabinet meeting that despite Labour's significant lead in national polls, six different elections from around the world were examples of leads reversing once campaigns began.

In September 2023, New Statesman ranked McSweeney third on a list of the most influential left-wing figures in the UK and described him as Starmer's "most trusted aide". The Times stated in October 2023 that "nobody without elected office wields as much power in British politics as McSweeney," and The Guardian has described him as "the most influential backroom operator in the party."

Personal life
McSweeney lives in Lanark, Scotland. He met his wife, former animal rights activist Imogen Walker, in Lambeth, and they have a son. In September 2023, Walker was selected as Labour's prospective parliamentary candidate in Hamilton and Clyde Valley. In the election she was elected.