Minister Josh Simons resigns after Labour Together claims

Labour MP Josh Simons has resigned as a Cabinet Office minister, just days after Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer asked his ethics adviser to investigate him.

Simons faced claims the think tank he used to runbefore he became an MP commissioned a report that looked into the background of journalists.

Confirming his resignation on X, the Labour MP said he had "become a distraction from this government's important work".

Sir Keir said he had accepted the resignation "with sadness", adding that ethics adviser Sir Laurie Magnus found Simons had not breached the ministerial code.

"I want to express my thanks for the commitment, focus, and energy you have brought to ministerial office," the PM added.

Simons said in his letter that he "never sought to smear" the Guardian and Sunday Times journalists investigated by APCO Worldwide, and paid tribute to their work.

Labour Together paid APCO Worldwide at least £30,000 to "investigate the sourcing, funding and origins" of a Sunday Times story about undeclared donations at the think tank ahead of the 2024 election.

The US public affairs firm's report included information about journalist Gabriel Pogrund's Jewish beliefs and claims about his ideological position.

The BBC has not seen APCO Worldwide's report in full, but sources familiar with its contents have confirmed the details, which were reported by the Sunday Times.

It also claimed, the sources said, that Pogrund's previous reporting, including on the Royal Family, "could be seen as destabilising to the UK and also in the interests of Russia's strategic foreign policy objectives".

A contract addressed to Simons, seen by the BBC, also agreed to investigate journalist Paul Holden and Matt Taibbi, an American reporter.

Holden said on Saturday that "Josh Simons doesn't deserve to be an MP, let alone a cabinet minister" adding: "I will now work to make sure parliamentary authorities hold him to account if our weak and supine prime minister will not."

He claimed Simons' actions threatened his livelihood and reputation, and had caused him "significant distress".

Simons, 32, had previously said the company which did the research for Labour Together had "gone beyond" what it had been asked to do.

Ethics adviser Sir Laurie wrote in a letter to the prime minister that the Makerfield MP had now accepted the terms he agreed with APCO Worldwide were "wider than he had understood" and had acted "too hastily in confirming their appointment".

Sir Laurie said Simons had acted "in good faith" but added that the MP acknowledged the "perceived gap between his public statements and what he now accepts appears to be a more extensive scope has been damaging".

More than 20 Labour MPs had called for a "fully independent investigation" into Simons and the report.

Labour Together has been widely credited with helping Sir Keir Starmer get elected as Labour leader.

Allies of Simons have told the BBC that he regretted what had happened but that APCO had to take responsibility for its actions and so far had not.

They said he had put his party first by resigning but had never sought to smear journalists.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch accused Sir Keir of using the strikes in the Middle East to try and "sneak out yet another ministerial resignation".

"Josh Simons was in charge of a group that deliberately smeared journalists, even using a journalist's Jewish faith to call him into question. Labour hasn't changed," she said.

Badenoch also called for the PM to "tell us immediately if he will now end Labour Together's links with his government and return the tainted money they've donated".

Alison Phillips, who became Labour Together's chief executive in 2025, said the "scope of the work" carried out by APCO was "indefensible".

She said the organisation was now under new leadership and would "learn the necessary lessons of the past".