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More of Keir Starmer\u2019s closest allies are becoming engulfed in the ongoing scandal about Peter Mandelson\u2019s appointment as the U.K.\u2019s ambassador to the United States. | Peter Nicholls\/Getty Images<\/p>\n\u201cI think we\u2019re going to have a more traditional think tank mode,\u201d she said. \u201cBut our mission remains for Labour to win and govern well, and there\u2019s no shirking from that. We are proudly into the concept of winning in a way that sometimes gets lost elsewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
With more of Starmer\u2019s closest allies becoming engulfed in the ongoing scandal about Peter Mandelson\u2019s appointment as the U.K.\u2019s ambassador to the United States, a group of MPs on the left of Labour have attempted to pin the blame on the organization. Last week, former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell called for an independent inquiry into an organization which he argued was responsible for the \u201ctoxic culture\u201d in Downing Street.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of it is completely, utterly bonkers,\u201d Phillips said in response. \u201cI mean this idea that they are sort of trying to connect us with Mandelson. He has nothing to do with this. The idea that we should be blamed for literally every bit of Labour policy that\u2019s happened at any point in history, that\u2019s not right.\u201d<\/p>\n
More of Keir Starmer\u2019s closest allies are becoming engulfed in the ongoing scandal about Peter Mandelson\u2019s appointment as the U.K.\u2019s ambassador to the United States. | Peter Nicholls\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Phillips also rejected the suggestion that such an inquiry would allow Labour Together to prove to critics that there are no more skeletons lingering in its closet.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been through all sorts of documents, and the idea that we are responsible for all sorts of heinous crimes is, I\u2019m afraid, very wide of the mark,\u201d she said. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing like the APCO report there. There really isn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the new boss is promising to stay out of the \u201cday-to-day politicking,\u201d some in Westminster viewed its recent polling on potential successors to Starmer as a clear sign that Labour Together is seeking its next political patron.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI think we\u2019re going to have a more traditional think tank mode,\u201d she said. \u201cBut our mission remains…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45491,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[126],"tags":[2421,28757,28758,264,2511,6102,1743,1436,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-45490","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-keir-starmer","8":"tag-data","9":"tag-jeremy-corbyn","10":"tag-john-mcdonnell","11":"tag-keir-starmer","12":"tag-lobbying","13":"tag-peter-mandelson","14":"tag-research","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-united-states"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116474263835496069","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45490\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}