Keir Starmer is facing major calls from the Tories to launch a huge inquiry
Keir Starmer has been hit with major questions (Image: Getty)
GB News‘ regular programming was halted after presenter Ben Leo revealed that Prime Minister Keir Starmer has been plunged into another scandal, prompting fresh calls for an inquiry. The 36-year-old reported: “A prominent Labour think tank that paid £36,000 to investigate British journalists and smear them as being pro-Russian. Ben added: “The Prime Minister is under pressure to investigate whether there are links between his government and Labour Together.”
The Conservative Party have called for the inquiry as Labour Together previously helped propel the UK leader into the premiership. As Foreign Office minister Stephen Doughty said, it would be “only right” to look into the think tank. In addition to Starmer, the pressure also falls on Government minister Josh Simons, who commissioned the 2023 report on reporters investigating the group’s funding. During GB News, the broadcaster explained that Labour Together “spent thousands of pounds smearing journalists who were reporting on their funding.”
“Labour Together is said to have hired PR firm, APCO Worldwide, to target British journalists who reported on the think tank’s failure to declare more than £70,000 in donations.”
Ben continued: “At the time, Labour Together was run by Josh Simons, who is now the Labour MP for Makerfield and a Cabinet Office minister, and before Simons, it was run by Starmer’s former Chief of Staff Morgan McSweeney, who recently resigned over the Mandelson affair.”
He added that according to The Sunday Times, APCO was hired to “examine the personal, political, religious backgrounds and motivations of British journalists probing their finances with a view to discrediting their work.”
The Conservative Party has written to Labour Party chair Anna Turley, urging her to investigate Simons’s role in the decision to hire Apco and to set out whether the party still considers it appropriate for Labour MPs to receive cash from the think tank.
In addition to investigating the role of other Labour Together directors, who include “serving cabinet ministers,” the Tories added that Labour should suspend all engagement with Labour Together “until all allegations have been independently investigated”.
The letter, which was penned by Tory chair Kevin Hollinrake, concluded: “Once again, the government is distracted from the serious challenges facing our country.
“The public deserve the full, unredacted facts about this latest scandal to engulf the top of the Labour Party. Nothing less will suffice.”
Labour MP Stella Creasy reacted to the news and said: “Genuinely shocked to read this and what happened. Shameful.”
