Key Figures from Labour Together Remain in Andy Burnham's Cabinet

London, United Kingdom Jul 26, 2026 ALN: ANDY Burnham’s Cabinet still features five MPs who were key players in the scandal-hit Labour Together movement, with an expert casting doubt on the Prime Minister's promises of turning around “neoliberal failure”.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, Defence Secretary Wes Streeting, Education Secretary Lucy Powell, Equalities Minister Bridget Phillipson and Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy were all named in Burnham’s top team last week.

They are part of a so-called “brave band” of nine Labour MPs credited with saving the party from the hard-left in their building of Labour Together.

The Labour-right think tank – recently rebranded as ThinkLabour – was thrust into the spotlight this year after it emerged former director Josh Simons had paid lobbying firm APCO Worldwide to conduct secret research into journalists investigating undisclosed donations to the group.

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Simons was elected as a Labour MP following his time at Labour Together but was forced to resign as a government minister in the wake of the affair. He then resigned as a Labour MP to allow Burnham to stand in the Makerfield by-election, which opened up the former Greater Manchester mayor's pathway to No 10.

One of the journalists targeted in the scandal, Paul Holden, told the Sunday National Burnham’s Cabinet picks point in a “worrying direction”, highlighting particular concern over Mahmood’s position of power.

“We still need to wait to see how Burnham governs, and whether he follows through with the sort of radical solutions to undo the 40 years of neoliberal failure he has identified in the context of genocide, spiralling wars in the Middle East and a climate crisis,” he said.

“But his Cabinet picks point in a worrying direction. At the very top, Burnham has effectively reshuffled Starmer's Cabinet, keeping in key players in the Labour Together project – most notably Shabana Mahmood and Wes Streeting, Peter Mandelson's long-time protégé. Indeed, of the nine 'brave' MPs who Labour Together famously claimed 'saved' the party from the hard-left, five are now in Cabinet.

“Mahmood's retention is particularly concerning considering her long-time association with Morgan McSweeney, her centrality to the brutal factionalism of the Labour Together project, and her hard-line approach to migrant rights, civil liberties and protest.”

McSweeney headed up Labour Together between 2017 and 2020 before becoming Keir Starmer’s chief of staff. Labour Together was fined £14,250 in September 2021 over late reporting of £740,000 of donations after the organisation reported itself to the Electoral Commission for failures to declare the money in 2020.

Holden’s book The Fraud – an exposure of the “intrigues, stratagems and deceits” that helped to propel Starmer into Downing Street – revealed the power McSweeney was able to wield over UK politics as he looked to wipe out the Labour left.

Morgan McSweeney (Image: NQ)

Former Labour NEC member Mark Seddon, who left the party in 2005, said continuing to involve key players from Labour Together in the Cabinet was not a good look, but suggested Burnham faces a tough battle against the Labour right.

“Apart from their brief return to some kind of semblance of social democracy under [Jeremy] Corbyn, [the Labour Party] have been on this rightward trajectory for a very long time and beginning to turn this great ship around is probably going to take a great deal of effort,” said Seddon.

“I’m sure Burnham and the people around him will be aware that many of the people who plotted against Corbyn would equally plot against Burnham. So, the sectarianism may not disappear. The old Labour right are even more factional than the Labour left.”

He went on: “The tactics they [Labour Together] used were totally reprehensible.

“I left the Labour Party because of people like that. They poisoned the well and made the party a deeply unpleasant place to be. Things may change under Burnham, and I do think it’s probably a work in progress.”

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Alongside the five Cabinet members linked with Labour Together, Burnham has also recruited failed Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar as a Trade Minister, with Sarwar set to resign his MSP seat and take up a peerage despite pledging in the run-up to the Holyrood election he would never do this.

Familiar faces from the days of Tony Blair have once again been handed Cabinet roles too, with Yvette Cooper named as Health Secretary and John Healey moving into No 11 as Chancellor.

The National also revealed last week how more than a third of Burnham’s Cabinet are supporters of Labour Friends of Israel, which has previously been implicated in concerns over foreign influence in UK politics.

Holden said the recruitment of Healey was another worrying prospect, given his role as defence secretary while the UK aided Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

“Healey is tainted by serving for two years as the defence secretary under Starmer as the UK provided support and military cooperation – like surveillance flights – to Israel's genocide in Gaza,” he said.

“A Streeting-Healey axis bodes ill for any chance to rein in militarism and spiralling spending on defence and early calls suggest continuity with Starmer's foreign policy, in particular the UK's relationship to the US and Israel.”

Holden went on: “While it has been good to see the most unreconstructed elements of Starmer's factional project removed – like Steve Reed, Rachel Reeves and Peter Kyle – there has been little attempt to reach across all parts of the party, despite Burnham's promise of a broad church.

“There has not been a single senior or junior Cabinet appointment from the party's left-wing organisations like Mainstream or the Socialist Campaign Group. There was some hope that popular and competent figures like Ian Byrne, Andy McDonald, Richard Burgon, Clive Lewis, Dawn Butler or Rebecca Long-Bailey might be integrated into Cabinet, and it is striking that they have been excluded.

“Instead, we have a Cabinet that parties like it's 2015. Back then, they did not have the boldness and big ideas to defeat the Tories, austerity and forever wars. Let's see if they do now.”