Labour minister asked spy chiefs to investigate journalists

A Labour minister’s former aide asked spy chiefs to investigate journalists at the centre of a Sunday Times probe into Labour Together funding.

The aide shared details about a journalist’s private life with the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and wrongly suggested that the Sunday Times story was the result of a Russian computer hack.

The revelations, reported in The Guardian, will increase pressure on Josh Simons, a Cabinet minister who was the director of the Labour Together think tank accused of running a smear campaign against journalists.

The think tank paid US public affairs firm Apco £36,000 to compile a report into the sourcing, funding and origins of a 2023 Sunday Times story. The article revealed that Labour Together had failed to declare £730,000 of donations between 2017 and 2020.

The newspaper’s story had been based on the work of two journalists, Paul Holden and Matt Taibbi, who were writing a book about Labour Together.

Labour Together urged Apco to investigate the reporters to “establish who and what are behind the coordinated attacks on Labour Together”.

Mr Simons reportedly contacted the NCSC on Jan 23, 2024 to report concerns that information in Holden’s book may have been obtained by an illegal hack.

Two days later, Mr Simons’s then chief of staff, Ben Szreter, passed on a redacted copy of Apco’s findings to the NCSC, and highlighted information about one of the journalists’ private lives.

Mr Simons was copied in on the email.

“We understand that Paul Holden, the pro-Corbyn investigative journalist who obtained the documents, is currently living with Jessica Murray,” he said.

“Jessica Murray is daughter of Andrew Murray, a political adviser to Corbyn during his leadership of the Labour party. Andrew Murray is a highly controversial figure who is suspected of links to Russian intelligence by MI5.”

He also named Sunday Times journalists Gabriel Pogrund and Harry Yorke as the authors of the article but did not share any information about them.

Mr Szreter wrote: “We suspect that the articles may be a coordinated effort to discredit Labour Together in order to undermine Mr McSweeney and, by extension, Mr Starmer in the run-up to next year’s general election…

“We believe that the likeliest culprit is the Russian state, or proxies of the Russian state.”

After a brief assessment, the NCSC ruled out the need for an investigation into the Sunday Times story or Labour Together’s allegations.

Parameters of Apco investigation outlined

Separately, an email has emerged from November 2023 which outlined the parameters of the investigation Apco agreed to carry out for Labour Together.

The email, written to Mr Simons, said: “Apco will investigate the sourcing, funding and origins of a Sunday Times article about Labour Together, as well as upcoming works by authors Paul Holden and Matt Taibbi, to establish who and what are behind the coordinated attacks on Labour Together.

“The approach should provide a body of evidence that could be packaged up for use in the media in order to create narratives that would proactively undermine any future attacks on Labour Together.”

It said the firm would use “human intelligence investigation” and “stakeholder outreach” to come up with evidence.

The Cabinet Office is conducting a fact-finding exercise into Mr Simons’s actions during this period.

A spokesman said: “Officials in the Propriety, Ethics and Constitution group will establish the facts, as has been the case under successive administrations.”

A spokesperson for Mr Simons said Labour Together had contacted the NCSC following concerns that information in Holden’s book may have been obtained following an illegal hack.

She confirmed the think tank shared a redacted version of the Apco report with the NCSC which did not include details about Pogrund or Yorke. She said Mr Szreter’s email contained either direct quotes or paraphrasing of the redacted report.

[Source: Daily Telegraph]