All the Prime Minister’s Men: A Nixonian case study of Starmer’s corrupt government.

 By: Andrew Wallace

Anarchists contend that the idea and practice of government is a folly as it places individuals within a coercive framework instead of an otherwise naturally spontaneous free association of self-directed citizens. To govern is to betray society’s true interests as it inevitably falls prey to corruption and the self-interest of a ruling elite. The absence of government might also be thought problematic in giving rise to the Hobbesian dilemma of the state of nature, a “war of all against all”. The majoritarian view largely concedes that government functions as a necessary evil to avoid calamitous anarchy, but it also understands that checks and balances should place distinctive limits on the respective office holders.

Starmer’s government is yet another classic case study of how liberal governments are prone to betray their lofty ideals. Indeed, its malfeasance was already in operation before government in the post Corbyn opposition years (Holden 2025). The illicit resort to dirty tricks in order to undermine opposition from within and without the ruling Labour clique closely follows the mid-1970s scandals from across the Atlantic of the Nixon administration. Not for nothing is Watergate now invoked as the template with the illegal deployment of government functionaries, slush funds, think tanks and surveillance with a purpose to defenestrate perceived enemies both inside and outside the ruling regime.

The Labour Together think tank founded in 2015 became integral to the so-called Starmer project. This involved a fundamentally hostile operation to destabilise the then current Corbyn leadership and prepare Starmer to succeed as Labour leader under an initial bogus platform that promised to carry over much of the left-wing policy development. Suspicions subsequently arose over undeclared donations and Labour Together were fined accordingly by the Electoral Commission. However it also emerged that the rogue think tank had commissioned private investigators as part of a concerted smear campaign against journalists researching irregularities of the organisation (Gierson and Stacey 2026). The plot thickens when we learn Labour Together’s director at the time (2023) was Josh Simons who subsequently became a Labour MP the following year (Mason 2026). Simons who initially emerged as a Corbyn adviser (whilst secretly briefing against the left) was soon heavily entwinned with Morgan McSweeney, Starmer’s notorious chief of staff and Simons’s predecessor as director of Labour Together (Boffey 2026).

 

Boffey, D (2026) ‘Starmer’s top advisers knew about ‘indefensible’ journalists probe, documents reveal’, The Guardian, 20 May.

Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/may/20/keir-starmer-advisers-journalists-investigation-thinktank (Accessed 21 May 2026).

 

Gierson, J and Stacey, K (2026) ‘Labour thinktank close to Morgan McSweeney paid firm to investigate journalists’, The Guardian, 6 February.

Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/feb/06/labour-thinktank-close-to-morgan-mcsweeney-allegedly-paid-firm-to-investigate-journalists (Accessed 21 May 2026).

 

Holden, P (2025), The Fraud: Keir Starmer, Morgan McSweeney, and the Crisis of British Democracy. OR Books

 

Mason, R (2026) ‘Who is Josh Simons, the Labour MP who quit for Andy Burnham?’, The Guardian, 14 May.

Available at:https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/may/14/who-is-josh-simons-labour-mp-andy-burnham (Accessed 21 May 2026)