Corkman is key operator in backroom team for the British Labour Party

A MACROOM man who was the mascot for the town’s GAA team when it won a famous county championship victory in 1982 is now playing a key role in steering the British Labour Party under Keir Starmer to power, at Number 10 Downing Street.

Morgan McSweeney, a son of New Street accountant Tim and wife Carmel, is now the director of campaigns for the British Labour Party and is regarded by most political watchers of the UK political scene as a key operator in Keir Starmer’s backroom team.

In an interesting twist, his first cousin is Clare Mungovan, also from Macroom, is a special adviser to Taoiseach Leo Varadkar.

When Mr McSweeney moved to the UK, it was for a bit of adventure and, after a while working on the building sites, he went to work for Labour while studying a politics degree as a mature student in Middlesex University. He got a job as a receptionist, when drafted in as a replacement for someone when they got injured.

Sources who know McSweeney say that he went for things and tried out new ways of tackling problems and was lucky and that he was also supported by good people such as a former general secretary of the Labour Party, Margaret McDonagh, who helped him out.

An early baptism of fire for him was helping out a campaign for the Welsh Senedd, and he notched up a number of successes.

One of his most notable successes was directing a council campaign in Barking and Dagenham where he masterminded the defeat of a slate of councillors for far-right group the British National Party.

He was able to rely on a strong Cork ex-pat community there – many workers in Cork’s Ford plant had moved to the company’s base in Dagenham after the closure in Cork in the early 1980s.

The MP for Dagenham and Rainham, Jon Cruddas, who is also of Irish stock, told the New Statesman that McSweeney had done almost every job in the Labour Party.

“There’s no sense of entitlement, and now he’s at the top of the party — that’s quite a unique characteristic,” said the MP.

“He has the psychology of an organiser, and he’s quite brilliant at it. These fundamental political skills have been chiselled out over years, so he’s no blow-in to anything.”

In 2020, the Macroom man ran Keir Starmer’s leadership campaign and served as the leader’s chief of staff before taking on the role of campaigns director.

Following the recent Labour Party conference, Keir Starmer is riding high in the opinion polls in advance of a general election which, if opinion polls have any value, will land the lawyer and his party in Downing Street next year. Part of that rebuilding of the Labour Party may be McSweeney’s own wife, Imogen Walker, who is a candidate in Scottish constituency Hamilton and Clyde Valley, and who may well be one of Starmer’s ministerial picks.