A prominent anti-Breitbart activist is reportedly lined up for a top position in the incoming British government of former Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, potentially indicating a forthcoming doubling down on the pro-censorship moves made by the Starmer administration.
According to Labour Party insiders, cited by London’s Daily Telegraph, former Makerfield MP Josh Simons is set to become Number 10’s head of policy under likely future prime minister Andy Burnham.
Simons resigned from his seat in Makerfield in May to make way for Burnham to enter the House of Commons through a special by-election and thus enable him to challenge Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, whose own position had become untenable after his disastrous defeat to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party in the local elections.
The resignation of Simons from parliament was widely speculated at the time as a cynical move, likely made in exchange for a future position in a Burnham government. The timing was also fortuitous for Simons, who had been forced out of his government post as a junior Cabinet Office minister just two months prior, after his pro-censorship activities were revealed.
Prior to entering Parliament, Simons had acted as the head of Labour Together, a so-called think tank founded by Morgan McSweeney, the political strategist behind the rise of Sir Keir Starmer.
Labour Together began by targeting media on the hard left of British politics, as McSweeney and others sought to undermine the far-left faction led by former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, who needed to be cleared away for a comparative centrist like Starmer to take power.
This was done, in part, with an advertiser boycott campaign waged through its astroturfed cadet organisations Stop Funding Fake News (SFFN) and the the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) against the Corbynite news outlet The Canary. Once proven as a successful and viable strategy, similar efforts were waged against right-wing news outlets, including Breitbart News.
“The campaign succeeded in effectively destroying the left-wing British outlet The Canary, which is only now recovering. Breitbart News persists,” South African journalist Paul Holden explained in his report documenting the scheme.
While such tactics were apparently accepted among the British media political establishment, which, like Starmer, also benefitted from upstart populist rivals being damaged, the actions drew the ire of the Trump administration in the United States as it sought to push back against the forces of censorship in both Britain and the European Union, including sanctions against the head of Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), Imran Ahmed.
Amid the increased scrutiny brought by the sanctions, it was revealed that Simons had allegedly hired a PR firm to dig up dirt against multiple legacy media journalists who had reported on Labour Together’s failure to disclose some £730,000 in donations under McSweeney, which investigative outlet Democracy For Sale claimed was obscured “so the think tank would look like a humble, grassroots initiative when in fact it was a well-funded vehicle to take over the party”.
Yet the apparent smear campaign against Sunday Times Gabriel Pogrund and Harry Yorke backfired as it was revealed that the supposed dirt gathered for Labour Together, namely that they had obtained information on the funding from a Russian hack, was fabricated. Yet Simons had reportedly already passed the fake news to the a British government spy agency, in an alleged attempt to silence critical media by taking journalists out altogether.
While such revelations forced Simons to resign from his government post just a few months ago, they apparently pose no problem for the incoming Burnham administration.
According to an unnamed Labour MP speaking to The Telegraph: “He would certainly be qualified for the Downing Street head of policy role. His background is very sort of pointy-headed policy geek. I have heard he has really hit it off with Andy. It’s meant to be a real meeting of minds.”
“It’s not just the gratitude because he did such a dramatic thing by giving up his seat, but they actually get on really well with each other. And supporters of Starmer, who might resent what he did, may put that to one side because they would prefer that the guy who used to run Labour Together and is very clearly a moderate was in charge of policy rather than someone from the Left.”
However, others were less pleased about the prospect of Simons returning to power, with another Labour insider telling the paper: “I think the whole thing has been a farce, him resigning makes us look silly to the public, so I am not especially keen to see him in the role. How does he represent change when he was the director of Labour Together, the group we thought was helping us prepare for government?”