Labour Together ‘making clean break’ after former director resigns as minister

Labour Together helped Keir Starmer win No 10 but the party’s MPs and opposition politicians have called for the PM to distance himself from the thinktank. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

A Labour thinktank that helped Keir Starmer into No 10 has said it is making a “clean break” from the past after its former director, Josh Simons, resigned as a minister over a report falsely linking journalists to a “pro-Kremlin” network.

The board of Labour Together distanced itself from Simons’ decision in 2023 to hire a lobbying firm to investigate Sunday Times, Guardian and independent reporters who were looking into its failure to declare more than £700,000 in donations.