A SCOTTISH Labour MP defended taking £10,000 in donations from a think tank that ran a campaign to discredit journalists before launching an attack on the SNP.
Graeme Downie, MP for Dunfermline and Dollar, was pressed on if the cash given to him ahead of the 2024 General Election should be considered as part of a probe into all party’s finances.
Last week, a bid spearheaded by Scottish Labour in Holyrood for a parliamentary inquiry into the Peter Murrell embezzlement scandal failed after MSPs backed an independent probe into all political parties instead.
It came after a Scottish Greens amendment called for an independent review led by a neutral figure, which would consider wider issues such as financial transparency, the influence of extremely wealthy individuals making large donations and so-called "dark money" organisations who do not disclose their own funding sources.
Downie accepted a £10,000 donation from Labour Together on April 2, 2024, while contesting the Dunfermline and Dollar seat.
Labour Together, which helped Keir Starmer get elected as Labour leader, commissioned an investigation in 2023 into the source of stories about undeclared donations made to the think tank when it was previously run by Morgan McSweeney, who would later become, and then resign as, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff.
The think tank allegedly paid PR firm Apco to examine and spy on journalists.
Speaking on BBC Scotland’s Sunday Show, Downie was asked if the cash had been given was now “tainted”.
“I think everything was declared properly when it comes to that cash,” he said.
When pressed on how more revelations had come out about the activities of Labour Together, Downie stumbled over his words before adding: “I’ve spoken about that issue before and I think that's being investigated properly, as absolutely should be.”
Asked if this was the kind of area a probe looking into the funding of political parties should examine, Downie dodged the question before launching a broadside at the SNP.
He said: “I think when you look at that, I mean, I'm sitting in the constituency where the camper van that no one could see was mysteriously found…”
Asked if he was happy for his own donations to be investigated in this way, Downie again attacked the SNP.
“I think, look, as I say, everything that I've been donated is entirely above board and being done correctly,” he said.
“But I think you look at the SNP, who ran away from any suggestion of any inquiry into their own finances, and have done for the last few years, in fact.
“I think they were finally driving, kicking and screaming into a position that still will not actually look at the position that they found themselves in independently either.
“It was only thanks to pressure from Labour MSPs and Labour MPs that even got them to that position, but they've been running scared of this for years.”
We previously told how Downie went on an all-expenses-paid trip to Israel funded by a Zionist lobbying group.
We told how under Josh Simons, who quit as parliamentary secretary in the Cabinet Office and later as an MP triggering the Makerfield by-election, Labour Together targeted journalists who had reported on secret donations said to be behind its work.
The failure to disclose the donations reported on by the journalists in question, led to the think tank being fined £14,250 by the Electoral Commission for 20 breaches of law under Morgan McSweeney’s leadership.
According to Electoral Commission records, Labour Together Limited has given over £2 million to the Labour Party since 2022, Labour Together has donated £243,064.13 and Labour Together Ltd £35,000. All three are registered as separate entities.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves, Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Secretary David Lammy and Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper all accepted donations from the think tank.
And, Scottish Labour accepted £75,000 from Francesca Perrin, a director of Labour Together, ahead of the Holyrood 2026 election.
