It takes an Irishman to understand the mentality of the English working class. Morgan McSweeney (Macroom, Ireland, 47 years old) has become Keir Starmer’s new Chief of Staff, replacing the controversial senior official, Sue Gray. The expulsion from the hard core of the Government of a woman who concentrated power and experience in the British Administration for decades is the penultimate victory of a political guru who has contributed like no one else in recent years to once again transforming the Labor Party into a winning option.
But McSweeney, unlike other mercenaries of political strategy, lives, breathes and thinks about Labour, 24 hours a day. This, despite the fact that he does not come from a left-wing family tradition. He settled in England at the age of 17; He worked in construction for a while while living with relatives and entered Middlesex University shortly after, where he graduated in Politics and Marketing.
It was precisely the political feat of the Good Friday Agreement, promoted by Tony Blair’s Labor Government and which brought peace to Northern Ireland, that seduced McSweeney, who began working as an intern at the Labor Party headquarters.
Although his organizational skills and professional zeal were immediately noticed by colleagues and bosses, McSweeney’s star really began to shine in 2006, when he took charge of the municipal campaign in London boroughs where Labor was losing to the Liberal Democrats. moderates or fascist candidates such as those presented by the British National Party (BNP).
The young Irishman, as averse to left-wing as right-wing extremism, showed a double talent in his new task: the ability to lead an electoral campaign with an iron fist and the intuition to capture the desires of the traditional voters of the Labor Party.
He had no qualms about leaking to the press, with the tenacity of a hammer, information against the liberal-democratic candidate Adeline Aina, in which she was accused of having tried to defraud the municipal authority in her attempt to purchase a home. social that he did not really inhabit. Labor regained the Government from Lambeth Council.
The victory in the London county of Barking was even more spectacular. The far-right BNP won 12 councilors there, with a xenophobic and racist discourse that attracted residents of a notably depressed area. McSweeney wanted to get to the bottom of the reasons for that vote and understood that they lay in the deterioration of public services. With a mix of patriotism, tough-on-crime promises and local activism to restore gardens and public spaces, the team formed by McSweeney, the anti-fascist group Hope Not Hate and local MP Jon Cruddas gave the They returned to the situation between 2008 and 2010 and reconquered the territory for the left.
The fight against Corbyn
During Jeremy Corbyn’s years at the head of the Labor Party, between 2015 and 2020, in which the left wing of the party prevailed over the still-living embers of Tony Blair’s New Labour, McSweeney decided to stay, rather than leave the party. like many of the moderates. He understood that the battle for the direction of the left had to take place from within Labour, the historical force of progressivism in the United Kingdom.
Along with other figures who today form a fundamental part of the new Government, such as the Minister of Economy, Rachel Reeves; the Minister of Health, Wes Streeting; the Minister of Culture and Sports, Lisa Nandy, or the head of the Labor parliamentary group, Lucy Powell, McSweeney helped create the think tank and internal current named Labor Together (Together Labor).
The debates, documents and proposals of a group that aspired to eliminate all traces of the corbynism—including the anti-Semitism of which he was insistently accused— served to prepare the launch pad from which Starmer could take off. McSweeney was the first to detect that this lawyer and former prosecutor, who had remained loyal to Corbyn and was part of his team as spokesperson for everything related to Brexit, was the moderate, serious and temperate figure that the party needed to win elections again. .
Starmer won the battle for the leadership of the Labor Party with a promise to maintain all of his predecessor’s electoral commitments, which leaned heavily to the left. Once in charge, with the help of McSweeney – who also managed his primary campaign – the new leader mercilessly disposed of all remains, both people and policies, of the corbynismto direct the party towards a moderate and friendly version very similar to Tony Blair’s New Labour.
After the July 4 election victory, Starmer took McSweeney with him to Downing Street, as Director of Political Strategies. The adviser makes the six-hour round trip by train from Lanark, the Scottish town south of Glasgow where he lives with his family, to London every week.
His wife, Imogen Walker, with whom he has a son, is an MP for the Labor Party. The two met during those early battles at Lambeth Council, when she was one of the councilors struggling to survive.
McSweeney took on the task, since Labor regained power after 14 years of Conservative governments, of thinking about the next election and ensuring that Starmer and his team actually carried out the decade of reform and national renewal they had promised. to the voters.
The Irish advisor knows that the victory of last July 4 was as overwhelming in the number of deputies as it was fragile in the real support of voters. And that support can perfectly flee towards populism if the promised results are not perceived as soon as possible.
McSweeney will thus be the only voice authorized, from now on, to speak on behalf of Starmer and try to bring order to a Government that, three months in, has already shown clear signs of confusion and lack of direction.
