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The Myth of Morgan McSweeney
The established press’ focus on supposedly ‘all powerful’ individual advisors often obscures the more important structural issues that come to define politics, writes Adam Bienkov
If you have heard anything about Keir Starmer’s chief advisor Morgan McSweeney in recent years, it is most likely about his supposedly critical role in ousting the British National Party in Barking and Dagenham in 2010.
This story, which focuses on McSweeney’s time as a young Labour activist, has been repeated so often in media coverage that it has become a central part of how both he, and the entire Starmer project, is seen.
Nowhere has this been more the case than with the Government’s recent turn towards Reform UK-style hardline migrant politics. This shift, which has seen Starmer’s party adopt ‘Blue Labour’ messaging on immigration, has repeatedly been justified with comparisons to McSweeney’s previous experience in Barking and Dagenham.
If McSweeney could single-handedly beat the BNP in Barking in 2010, the argument goes, then surely he can do the same with Nigel Farage’s Reform in 2025?
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