I Was Naive Says Minister Who Quit Over Labour Together

Published: March 30, 2026. The English Chronicle Desk. The English Chronicle Online—Providing trusted news and professional analysis for the UK.

Former Cabinet Office minister Josh Simons has admitted he was “naive” in his first broadcast interview since resigning from the Government over a burgeoning spying scandal involving the influential think tank Labour Together. Speaking on BBC Newscast, the MP for Makerfield broke his silence on the controversy that has rocked the heart of Sir Keir Starmer’s administration, acknowledging that he acted too hastily and without sufficient legal advice when he commissioned a private intelligence firm to investigate journalists. Mr. Simons, who served as the director of Labour Together before entering Parliament, stepped down from his ministerial role last month after it emerged that the think tank had falsely linked several high-profile reporters to a “pro-Kremlin” propaganda network in communications with the intelligence services.

The scandal centers on a £36,000 contract Mr. Simons signed with the lobbying and PR firm APCO Worldwide in late 2023. The original intent, according to Mr. Simons, was to investigate a suspected hack of the think tank’s confidential materials following a series of damaging leaks regarding £730,000 in undeclared donations. However, the resulting 58-page report went far beyond a digital forensics inquiry, instead compiling intrusive dossiers on the personal lives, religious backgrounds, and professional relationships of journalists from The Sunday Times, The Guardian, and Declassified UK. “I was naive, and there’s a lot I’ve learned from it,” Mr. Simons told the BBC, adding that while he was “shocked” by the intrusive nature of the final report, he accepted that the broad “terms of reference” he approved had allowed the investigators to overstep.

The fallout from the “spying” allegations has extended well beyond Mr. Simons’ own career, casting a long shadow over the Prime Minister’s closest advisors. The reporting failures at Labour Together occurred during a period when Morgan McSweeney—the recently departed Downing Street Chief of Staff—was also a leading figure at the organization. While the Independent Adviser on Ministerial Standards, Sir Laurie Magnus, cleared Mr. Simons of a technical breach of the Ministerial Code, he concluded that the “perceived gap” between the minister’s public statements and the reality of the APCO report had caused significant reputational damage to the Government. The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, has seized on the admission of naivety, demanding that the Labour Party return all “tainted” donations linked to the think tank and calling for a wider judge-led inquiry into the group’s influence on government policy.

For the journalists targeted by the probe, including The Sunday Times reporter Gabriel Pogrund and freelance investigator Paul Holden, the minister’s apology has done little to mitigate the sense of betrayal. Mr. Holden has since hit out at the BBC for granting Mr. Simons a platform to “rebrand” his actions as simple naivety, noting that the victims were not approached for comment prior to the broadcast. As Labour Together attempts to make a “clean break” under new leadership, the scandal remains a potent symbol of the “murky” intersections between political think tanks and state power. For Josh Simons, the transition from a rising star of the “Starmerite” project to a backbench MP serves as a cautionary tale of how the pursuit of political security can lead to the very ethical lapses it seeks to prevent.

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