Morgan McSweeney, a man instrumental in the rise of Sir Keir Starmer, is at the center of another political row after a wave of anonymous reporting exposed tensions at the heart of the government.
Senior ministers have called on Sir Keir Starmer to impose order on the Downing Street operation run by McSweeney, his chief of staff, after media reports that cabinet colleagues were planning leadership challenges.
Some in the government have blamed the 48-year-old adviser for being behind the briefings and importing into Downing Street a culture of off-the-record chats with opposition journalists.
But Sir Keir has said he is satisfied that reports about Cabinet ministers plotting to challenge him did not come from Number 10.
McSweeney has not commented on the criticism: like most people in behind-the-scenes roles in government, he is not allowed to appear before television cameras to defend himself.
And he has always sought to maintain a low profile in any case. Until recently, few photographs of him circulated.
His power and influence derives from his career as a political strategist: he masterminded Labour’s landslide victory in the 2024 general election and Sir Keir’s bid for the Labor leadership in 2020.
Like previous powerful but unelected Downing Street advisers such as Dominic Cummings and Alastair Campbell, he has been the target of negative stories.
His closeness to Sir Keir – as an experienced political operator for a relatively inexperienced Prime Minister – means he can be seen as a “representative” of the Prime Minister.
An ally of the Prime Minister told the BBC: “They are coming for Morgan because they want to get Keir.
“This is not a battle of parliamentary parties, it is a battle of the Labor elite.”
McSweeney emerged victorious from an internal power struggle to become Sir Kier’s chief of staff last year following the dramatic resignation of Sue Gray.
Quiet, modest, even shy, especially in public, McSweeney is known for being obsessed with winning, constantly fearful of complacency and always aware of Labour’s record of losing far more elections than it wins.
Born in Macroom, County Cork, McSweeney had a comfortable upbringing as the son of an accountant and a retired office worker.
He moved to London as a teenager, initially working on construction sites before gaining a place at the London School of Economics.
He abandoned his studies and went to live in an Israeli kibbutz for six months, before returning to London to study at Middlesex University, where he earned a degree in politics and marketing.
McSweeney then joined the Labor Party under Tony Blair, working in a junior position at party headquarters.
He later went to work for Steve Reed, now environment secretary but at the time a councilor in Lambeth, south London, where he was trying to regain control of the party from the far left.
In 2006, McSweeney helped lead the party’s successful campaign to take control of the council, and Reed became leader.
His reputation as a skilled campaign strategist was further cemented in Barking and Dagenham, where the far-right, anti-immigration British National Party was gaining support and hoped to win its first parliamentary seat in 2010.
McSweeney played a key role in the fight to defeat the BNP in the area, with a campaign focused on local issues.
However, his campaigns were not always a success: in 2015 he led Blairite Liz Kendall’s bid to become Labor leader, where she obtained only 4.5% of the vote in the contest won by Jeremy Corbyn.
In 2017, McSweeney became director of the Labor Together think tank, which opposed the party’s leadership under Corbyn and later backed Sir Keir.
The Electoral Commission subsequently fined Labor Together £14,250 for late and inaccurate reporting of donations during the period McSweeney was director.
The fine subsequently fueled calls from Conservative MPs for a deeper investigation into Labour’s campaign finances, although the Electoral Commission decided not to reopen the investigation.
At the time of the fine, McSweeney had left Labor Together to run Sir Keir’s 2020 leadership bid, and later became his opposition chief of staff, where he played a key role in removing Corbyn supporters from positions of power.
It was here that he devised what became Starmer’s three-year plan. First, Labor would perform “immediate CPR” to detoxify the party’s ranks, then focus on becoming an effective opposition in parliament, before finally attempting to win power by outperforming the Conservatives on crime, defense and the economy.
As Labor campaign manager, McSweeney was tasked with devising the party’s strategy for last July’s general election.
He devised Labour’s selection process for parliamentary candidates, which saw left-wing figures sidelined and sparked fierce disputes with the trade union movement.
Among the newly elected Labor MPs was his wife, Imogen Walker, a former Lambeth councilor who now represents Hamilton and the Clyde Valley.
McSweeney was credited with keeping Labor HQ focused on winning back so-called “hero voters”, voters who supported Boris Johnson in 2019 but were willing to return to supporting Labour.
He also oversaw the deployment of money and equipment to marginal constituencies, often to the detriment of senior Labor figures in safe seats.
The result was a historic landslide victory: Labor won more than 200 seats despite increasing its vote share by less than two percentage points.
