2015–2017: Formation The organisation was set up in June 2015 by John Clarke, a former
Blue Labour director, under the name Common Good Labour (renamed Labour Together on 1 September that year), following the Labour Party defeat in the
2015 general election and the resignation of its leader
Ed Miliband, intending to learn lessons from Miliband's defeat. MP
Jon Cruddas, in an attempt to prevent the wider party from fracturing, gathered other MPs including
Steve Reed and
Lisa Nandy to form the group. The group involved members from both
New Labour and
Blue Labour, and by October 2015 had also recruited
Chuka Umunna,
Tristram Hunt and
Maurice Glasman. Cruddas commented on the group's formation in
The Observer that same month, stating that "in the 2015 leadership election we surrendered the argument on
devolution. Labour is stuck in an unpopular, outdated politics of
taxing and spending and using
state control", and that this had placed Labour "into a situation in which a
Tory chancellor looks more in tune with our Labour councils in the north than the Labour party itself." On 31 May 2016, Nandy officially announced the launch of Labour Together, chaired by Cruddas. Before the launch, on 25 May, the group announced a "communities fund" for donations as well as an academy with the aim of teaching party members about campaigning, organising and leadership. The group received initial funding from Nevsky Capital founder
Martin Taylor and
Trevor Chinn, the latter of whom was appointed as Labour Together's director after donating £10,000. Members often met in
parliament or at the
House of St Barnabas.
2017–2020: Support of Keir Starmer for Labour Party leadership In 2017,
Morgan McSweeney took over as director of the organisation at its offices in
Vauxhall, This was primarily achieved by exploiting the issue of anti-semitism. McSweeney wrote in an early confidential strategy paper, that the group would cultivate "seemingly independent voices to generate and share content to build up a political narrative and challenge fake news and political extremism." They also launched a "Stop funding fake news" campaign targeting websites they considered
alt-left or
alt-right, which included identifying articles they deemed to contain racist or fake content and contacting advertisers on these sites. Labour Together relaunched with an unofficial purpose to dissuade
moderate MPs from starting a breakaway group after the success of Corbyn in the
2015 Labour leadership election, as well as to obtain control of the party from its
left wing. Labour Together was investigated by the
Electoral Commission from January 2021 The analysis was drawn from the combined insights from over 11,000 survey responses from Labour members members, supporters, and former voters, alongside more than 50 in depth interviews with activists, organisers and party staff, Labour candidates and MEPs across the UK. It was supported by submissions from groups across the movement including
Momentum,
Progress, Labour Business, English Labour Network, a Labour LGA councillors’ survey, Labour's Community Organising Unit and affiliated Trade Unions including
Unite. The review was described in Labour List as being "welcomed by party across factions". The Election Review concluded that for Labour to win the next election, it would need to win over "hero voters" and the
red wall, who in the
2019 general election had voted for the
Conservative Party.
2022–2024: Relaunch as a policy think tank and general election campaign became Labour Together director in 2022, relaunching it "as a political think tank." In 2022,
Josh Simons, a former Corbyn
policy advisor who had resigned after being demoted for suspected leaking, in his words in protest due to accusations of antisemitism in the party, took over as director of the group. He stated in 2023 that "now, Labour Together has relaunched as a political think tank." Lisa Nandy objected to the relaunch. The group focused on "security" as a central campaign theme, In the summer of 2023, Labour Together founder Jon Cruddas left the organisation, claiming that Labour was under the control of a "rightwing, illiberal" faction. He also stated that "there's been a lot of ‘boasting’ on Labour Together's work within the party," and that "many are reinterpreting history for their own purposes." As of October 2023 Labour Together had received over £1.8 million in donations after Starmer became leader, with the three biggest donors being Martin Taylor, Trevor Chinn and Gary Lubner. It published policy papers on
investment, technology,
artificial intelligence, climate,
constitutional reform, and
geopolitics, which included
China.
hedge fund manager. Records from
Companies House state that Francesca Perrin, one of Labour Together's largest donors, had become a director at the organisation. At the
2024 general election, five staff or policy fellows (Simons,
Miatta Fahnbulleh,
Hamish Falconer,
Chris Curtis, and
Gordon McKee) became Labour MPs. By October, Labour Together had given donations totalling £1.5 million to over 100 different Labour MPs, ranging from donations of £5,000 to £137,168. The same month, the group published a report recommending that regional and city mayors be given more power over their budgets and public services. The group pushed Starmer's government to set "long-term targets" to reduce
immigration, as well as to "de-risk" supply chains by reducing reliances on China for critical minerals, in December 2024. In January 2025,
The Times reported that the group had made
redundancies, with up to 15% of staff leaving since the previous summer. One of these sources stated that Labour Together lacked "much of a purpose or sense of direction anymore", with few appearances from Ashworth and its director of policy Matthew Upton making decisions instead. One Labour Together member said that the group had "moved away from being a think tank that speaks publicly about policy", instead turning to "influencing government policy through private conversations with ministers and special advisers". The paper highlighted that the think tank was "losing staff and donors" and was "faltering under the leadership" of Ashworth, with MPs reporting receiving an increasing number of job applications from staff at Labour Together and funders turning their attention to other think tanks aligned with the Starmer leadership. In March the government discussed plans laid out by the think tank for the restructuring of
NHS England and other
quangos. These plans were dubbed "project chainsaw", in reference to a stunt by
Elon Musk in which he wielded a chainsaw to symbolise government cuts. In July 2025,
Jonathan Ashworth stood down as the organisation’s CEO and in September was replaced by
Alison Phillips, former editor of the
Daily Mirror. Labour Together were criticised by charity Asylum Matters over what was alleged to be their "Farage-flavoured approach" to migration policy, and encouraging the Labour government to "[play] with fire" by leaning "into the anti-migrant policies and rhetoric employed by the populist far-right across Europe". The
LabourList article went on to say that Labour Together was proposing directions that lead to 'the road to a ruinous breakdown of community cohesion and the house of cards that is the progressive electoral coalition that brought Labour to power in the first place.' Five months later,
The Times revealed that Labour Together had paid £36,000 to American public relations firm
APCO to discredit journalist
Gabriel Pogrund, and by extension
The Sunday Times, by falsely suggesting its journalists might be part of a
Russian conspiracy or had relied on emails
hacked by the
Russian government. Progrund and
The Sunday Times's deputy political editor Harry Yorke were reportedly named as "persons of significant interest" in a report by APCO, while Paul Holden was also investigated because he provided documents for the
Sunday Times article. According to
The Sunday Times, APCO was commissioned in January 2024 after a report by
The Sunday Times on Labour Together's
failure to declare £730,000 of donations between 2017 and 2020. The resulting report was named "Operation Cannon", and was allegedly made with the full knowledge of Morgan McSweeney who was heavily criticised in the
Sunday Times article. The report made various claims about Pogrund's journalism,
Jewish faith and relationships, whilst concluding that the emails that Pogrund had used in his article were leaked from Russian hacks. Neither Pogrund or Yorke were made aware of the investigations, even though the report was shared with British intelligence agency
GCHQ which reportedly declined to investigate the claims. , this incident is currently being investigated by the
Public Relations and Communications Association. Starmer also ordered the
Cabinet Office propriety and ethics team to investigate the claims about the Labour Together report. On February 28 Josh Simons, who had commissioned the investigation into Pogrund, resigned from his government postings over his involvement with Operation Cannon. == References ==