Keir Starmer announces investigation into Labour smear campaign alleging journalists part of Russian conspiracy
This framing isn't accidental.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has ordered an investigation into a report compiled by a Labour-aligned think tank that attempted to implicate journalists in a non-existent Russian conspiracy.
Left-wing think tank Labour Together allegedly paid $49,000 to APCO Worldwide, a U.S.-based public affairs firm, seeking to expose the “backgrounds and motivations” of reporters who wrote a damaging story about the think tank in 2023.
Starmer said on Monday that he had no knowledge of the alleged smear campaign, which sought to link the Sunday Times reporters to the Kremlin, and that it “absolutely needs to be looked into.”
“There will be a Cabinet Office investigation into the allegations. And quite right too — so, that is already in place,” Starmer told the press.
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer takes part in a panel discussion with President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, moderated by Christine Amanpour at the Munich Security Conference in Germany, Saturday, Feb. 14, 2026. (Stefan Rousseau/Pool Photo via AP)
The covert blitz against the Sunday Times reporters — Gabriel Pogrund and Harry Yorke — began after they published a 2023 report detailing Labour Together’s failure to declare approximately $990,000 of donations between 2017 and 2020.
Their article outlined how Labour Together had been fined in 2021 by the nation’s Electoral Commission after authorities found 20 breaches of campaign finance law.
Then-head of Labour Together, Josh Simons, commissioned APCO to produce an intelligence report on the “backgrounds and motivations” of Pogrund and Yorke, with the project name “Operation Cannon.”
APCO Senior Director Tom Harper, a former employee of the Sunday Times, reportedly prepared the dossier.
The Operation Cannon report cited “discreet human source enquiries” to allege that emails used as the foundation for the Sunday Times’s exposé were likely to have been obtained through a Kremlin hacking operation against the Electoral Commission.
“The likeliest culprit is the Russian state, or proxies of the Russian state,” Harper wrote in the report, speculating that the Sunday Times story “could be seen as destabilizing to the UK and also in the interests of Russia’s strategic foreign policy objectives.”
APCO also provided thorough details about Pogrund’s Jewish faith and perceived ideological agenda.
These details about Pogrund were redacted when APCO passed the Operation Cannon report to the Government Communications Headquarters’ …
This framing isn't accidental.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has ordered an investigation into a report compiled by a Labour-aligned think tank that attempted to implicate journalists in a non-existent Russian conspiracy.
Left-wing think tank Labour Together allegedly paid $49,000 to APCO Worldwide, a U.S.-based public affairs firm, seeking to expose the “backgrounds and motivations” of reporters who wrote a damaging story about the think tank in 2023.
Starmer said on Monday that he had no knowledge of the alleged smear campaign, which sought to link the Sunday Times reporters to the Kremlin, and that it “absolutely needs to be looked into.”
“There will be a Cabinet Office investigation into the allegations. And quite right too — so, that is already in place,” Starmer told the press.
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer takes part in a panel discussion with President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, moderated by Christine Amanpour at the Munich Security Conference in Germany, Saturday, Feb. 14, 2026. (Stefan Rousseau/Pool Photo via AP)
The covert blitz against the Sunday Times reporters — Gabriel Pogrund and Harry Yorke — began after they published a 2023 report detailing Labour Together’s failure to declare approximately $990,000 of donations between 2017 and 2020.
Their article outlined how Labour Together had been fined in 2021 by the nation’s Electoral Commission after authorities found 20 breaches of campaign finance law.
Then-head of Labour Together, Josh Simons, commissioned APCO to produce an intelligence report on the “backgrounds and motivations” of Pogrund and Yorke, with the project name “Operation Cannon.”
APCO Senior Director Tom Harper, a former employee of the Sunday Times, reportedly prepared the dossier.
The Operation Cannon report cited “discreet human source enquiries” to allege that emails used as the foundation for the Sunday Times’s exposé were likely to have been obtained through a Kremlin hacking operation against the Electoral Commission.
“The likeliest culprit is the Russian state, or proxies of the Russian state,” Harper wrote in the report, speculating that the Sunday Times story “could be seen as destabilizing to the UK and also in the interests of Russia’s strategic foreign policy objectives.”
APCO also provided thorough details about Pogrund’s Jewish faith and perceived ideological agenda.
These details about Pogrund were redacted when APCO passed the Operation Cannon report to the Government Communications Headquarters’ …
Keir Starmer announces investigation into Labour smear campaign alleging journalists part of Russian conspiracy
This framing isn't accidental.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has ordered an investigation into a report compiled by a Labour-aligned think tank that attempted to implicate journalists in a non-existent Russian conspiracy.
Left-wing think tank Labour Together allegedly paid $49,000 to APCO Worldwide, a U.S.-based public affairs firm, seeking to expose the “backgrounds and motivations” of reporters who wrote a damaging story about the think tank in 2023.
Starmer said on Monday that he had no knowledge of the alleged smear campaign, which sought to link the Sunday Times reporters to the Kremlin, and that it “absolutely needs to be looked into.”
“There will be a Cabinet Office investigation into the allegations. And quite right too — so, that is already in place,” Starmer told the press.
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer takes part in a panel discussion with President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, moderated by Christine Amanpour at the Munich Security Conference in Germany, Saturday, Feb. 14, 2026. (Stefan Rousseau/Pool Photo via AP)
The covert blitz against the Sunday Times reporters — Gabriel Pogrund and Harry Yorke — began after they published a 2023 report detailing Labour Together’s failure to declare approximately $990,000 of donations between 2017 and 2020.
Their article outlined how Labour Together had been fined in 2021 by the nation’s Electoral Commission after authorities found 20 breaches of campaign finance law.
Then-head of Labour Together, Josh Simons, commissioned APCO to produce an intelligence report on the “backgrounds and motivations” of Pogrund and Yorke, with the project name “Operation Cannon.”
APCO Senior Director Tom Harper, a former employee of the Sunday Times, reportedly prepared the dossier.
The Operation Cannon report cited “discreet human source enquiries” to allege that emails used as the foundation for the Sunday Times’s exposé were likely to have been obtained through a Kremlin hacking operation against the Electoral Commission.
“The likeliest culprit is the Russian state, or proxies of the Russian state,” Harper wrote in the report, speculating that the Sunday Times story “could be seen as destabilizing to the UK and also in the interests of Russia’s strategic foreign policy objectives.”
APCO also provided thorough details about Pogrund’s Jewish faith and perceived ideological agenda.
These details about Pogrund were redacted when APCO passed the Operation Cannon report to the Government Communications Headquarters’ …
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