The Surveillance Trap
A private opposition research firm, a government cyber security agency, and a chain of journalists caught in a web that began with leaked documents about political smear campaigns. What makes this story notable is not merely that journalists were investigated, but that the investigation itself appears designed to manufacture narratives for future attacks on critical reporters.
The Mechanism
Matt Taibbi writes, "Beginning in 2023, after publication of a series of 'UK Files' exposés on this site, the Starmer-aligned group Labour Together contracted a private firm called APCO to investigate me, author Paul Holden, Sunday Times writers Gabriel Pogrund and Harry Yorke, Guardian writer Henry Dyer, Kit Klarenberg of The Grayzone, and John McEvoy of Declassified UK."
The scope matters. Six journalists across multiple publications. The trigger: reporting on internal Labour Party operations. Josh Simons, a future MP and Parliamentary Secretary who commissioned the work, told the Sunday Times it was "nonsense" that APCO was charged with investigating journalists. Labour Together was merely interested in investigating a "suspected illegal hack."
"It's basically, we're planning to go and give you stuff that you can use to go after these journalists."
Yet the leaked contract tells a different story. APCO was tasked to "establish who and what are behind the coordinated attacks on Labour Together" and "identify the source of… information and to ascertain what additional information could be published." More damning: the firm would "provide a body of evidence that could be packaged up for use in the media to create narratives that would proactively undermine any future attacks on Labour Together."
This is opposition research dressed as national security. The reports were passed to the National Cyber Security Centre, part of GCHQ — Britain's analog to the NSA. Then mainstream outlets were briefed. The Guardian attempted to run a story on Paul Holden. He responded: "What on earth are you talking about? This is absolutely insane…" They backed off.
The Leverage Scam
Matt Taibbi writes, "This trick has apparently come into increasing use in recent years, with Britain's passage of the draconian National Security Act, in addition to more aggressive use of old laws like the Official Secrets Act, which shares 'Basically, Everyone is Guilty' qualities with America's Espionage Act."
The pattern: a politician calls a friendly reporter with news that a dissident journalist has been reported to security authorities for hacked materials or foreign association. The reporter calls the journalist. Fear spreads. Stories drop.
Kit Klarenberg of The Grayzone has faced the same tactic: "It's a complete fraud used to silence critical reporting." He noted that APCO's report described his publication as a "Wagner Propaganda Channel," referencing the Russian military group. Klarenberg responded with "amazed laughter." The Wagner-associated Signal group is spelled differently and totally unrelated. "Nothing to do with us. Astonishing incompetence," he said. Wagner is a proscribed terrorist group in the UK. Speaking positively about them is an imprisonable offense. APCO's error could have landed Klarenberg in legal jeopardy.
The Irony
Matt Taibbi writes, "One of the things that still blows my mind is that you and I were looking into an organization that claimed to be policing fake news and misinformation. And now they're creating disinformation."
Holden and Taibbi first published material about Labour Together because they were concerned about institutionalized smear systems. The Center for Countering Digital Hate — CCDH — had been sued by Elon Musk's X platform for spoofing claims about skyrocketing slurs. CCDH was a major character in the Twitter Files, an "independent" group that aggressively pushed platforms to remove accounts it considered sources of "online harms."
The UK Files showed CCDH grew out of Stop Funding Fake News, launched in 2019 by Imran Ahmed, who served as head of communications for Labour MP Andy Slaughter. The pattern: Ahmed, SFFN, and CCDH ginning up public controversies to attack the Corbynite wing of Labour and left-leaning allies like The Canary.
Matt Taibbi writes, "The analytical stuff that we were doing around where this particular political project was going is entirely borne out by what's happened in the last year and half. It's all been proven true. And Starmer is the most unpopular PM in the history of polling."
Counterpoints
Critics might note that Labour Together genuinely believed journalists received illegally hacked materials — a legitimate security concern that any organization would investigate. The APCO contract's offensive language may have been standard boilermate rather than deliberate narrative manufacturing. And Simons' assertion that only a "suspected illegal hack" was investigated, not journalists themselves, draws a distinction that defenders argue matters: the focus was on the source, not the reporters.
Critics might also argue that APCO's Wagner confusion was incompetence, not malice — a clerical error rather than deliberate framing. The firm's senior counselor is a former John Kerry aide, and APCO has longstanding associations with establishment figures. This is not a rogue operation but a mainstream political consulting firm following standard opposition research protocols.
Bottom Line
When a political party hires a private firm to investigate journalists who published leaked documents, then passes those reports to government security agencies and mainstream media, the line between opposition research and press suppression evaporates. The Official Secrets Act and National Security Act provide the legal architecture. GCHQ provides the institutional weight. APCO provides the narrative packaging. The result: a system where critical reporting triggers security investigations designed to manufacture counter-narratives. Paul Holden's verdict stands: an organization claiming to police misinformation is now creating disinformation. The analysts who warned this political project would end here were correct.