Now he is fighting Starmer for No 10
Morgan McSweeney ordered Sir Keir’s historic election victory and has won a power battle with Sue Grey in 10 Downing Street.
The Labour Party’s new chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, has been identified as the true power behind Sir Keir Starmer. Repeatedly, MP McSweeney, the party’s hero since the general election, had previously served as political strategy director. He is a formidable strategist who wants to win and views the party through a purely data-driven lens, transforming it into a well-oiled election-fighting machine.
McSweeney left his native County Cork at age 17, moved to London, and worked as a mature student in politics before joining the Labour Party in 1997. He worked as a volunteer for Lord Mandelson before campaigning during the 2005 general election. He thrills to his control of party machinery and acquired a taste for brawling with the Left in ways that served him well when it came to expunging Corbyn’s.
McSweeney was director of the Labour Think Tank Labour Together in 2017, which helped establish Jeremy Corbyn as Leader of the Labour Party. In the wake of having run Starmer’s leadership campaign, McSweeney devised a grand plan for power, which started with the purging of anti-Semites and Corby Nites from the party’s ranks and the reform of the system whereby parliamentary candidates are selected. It had been McSweeney’s, and to a degree, Sue Grey’s, disciplined party in many ways.
McSweeney may have read and learned about running and controlling the party from the Blair years, but he is no Blairite. He lives in Lanarkshire, to the west of Glasgow, with a six-hour commute to the Labour stronghold in Southwark. His wife, Imogen Walker, was elected as Labour MP for Hamilton and Clyde Valley at the General Election.
During the government’s first 100 days in office, McSweeney shared power inside 10 Downing Street with Sue Grey. As she proved to be increasingly unpopular, his star continued to rise, and some say the highest compliment in Labour is “Morgan likes it.”