Morgan McSweeney has been one of the most powerful men in the Labour Party for years. He’s now one of the most powerful men in the UK – but not many people have heard of him.
Yesterday, McSweeney took over from Sue Gray as Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff in No 10, after the former civil servant sensationally quit.
Previously, he had served as the Prime Minister’s head of political strategy – for reasons that will become obvious later on.
There have been reports that he and Gray were engaged in a power struggle over who made the big decisions about how the government delivers its vision for the country.
It appears that the man dubbed ‘The Morganiser’ has now emerged on top.
So who is he, and where did he come from? Why does the PM trust him with getting the operation back on track after months of controversies?
No, he is not. But he is the reason a lot of Labour MPs are sitting in the House of Commons at the moment.
Born in Cork, McSweeney first started working for the party shortly before the 2001 General Election.
In 2006, he devised a campaign strategy for local elections in the south London borough of Lambeth that propelled Steve Reed – now the environment secretary – to become council leader.
According to Anushka Asthana’s book Taken As Red, he worked out that Labour only needed to win 40% of the vote in a selection of key wards to claim victory.
So, he placed a heavy focus on voters in those areas with an aim to take the win in a manner that was as streamlined as possible – and it was a success.
If that ultra-efficient strategy sounds familiar, it’s because McSweeney took a similar approach to the 2024 General Election as Labour’s director of campaigns.
Driven by data, he managed to deliver a landslide for the party despite it receiving half a million fewer votes than in the 2019 General Election, where it lost 60 seats.
He worked closely with his ally Pat McFadden, who served as the election co-ordinator and is now the all-powerful Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.
But McSweeney demonstrated his mastery of internal Labour politics long before the vote on July 4.
In the late 2010s, he became one of the most powerful figures in Labour Together, a think tank which aimed to oust Jeremy Corbyn as leader and pull the party closer to the political centre.
When Corbyn resigned after the 2019 election, McSweeney backed Starmer to take over. He was picked as the leader’s chief of staff after his victory, and wasted no time in jettisoning Corbyn loyalists from positions of power.
McSweeney is married to Imogen Walker, who was elected as the MP for Hamilton and Clyde Valley in the west of Scotland at this year’s General Election.
They met during the Lambeth campaign when she was running as a councillor – while she was also working as a professional actor, appearing in TV shows such as Taggart and Doctors.
She won her seat on the council and later served as deputy leader of the council between 2014 and 2018.
The couple have a son and a home in the Scottish town of Lanark.
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