Matthew Doyle, a former senior aide to Sir Keir Starmer, has been suspended from the Labour whip in the House of Lords after it emerged he had campaigned on behalf of a friend convicted of possessing indecent images of children. Doyle, who stepped down as No 10 head of communications last March and was made a peer in December, apologised for his links to Sean Morton, a former Scottish Labour councillor.
Morton was convicted in 2018 of possessing indecent images and charges connected to extreme pornography, receiving a community payback order and being placed on the sex offender register. According to the Sunday Times, Doyle campaigned for Morton after he had been charged and suspended by Labour in 2016, travelling to Scotland to support him as an independent candidate wearing a top reading “Re-elect Sean Morton”.
In a statement, Doyle said: “I want to apologise for my past association with Sean Morton. His offences were vile and I completely condemn the actions for which he was rightly convicted. My thoughts are with the victims and all those impacted by these crimes.” He added that Morton had repeatedly asserted his innocence at the time, and that failing to cease support before the judicial conclusion was “a clear error of judgment”.
The controversy has added to pressure on Starmer, who has already faced questions over the appointment of Peter Mandelson as ambassador to Washington despite his links to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Starmer has denied knowing about Doyle’s relationship with Morton before the peerage. The Prime Minister is understood to have wanted the issue examined after the reports emerged.
Separately, Scottish Labour has suspended the whip of MSP Pam Duncan-Glancy, who stepped down as education spokesperson in December after disclosures about her friendship with Morton. Duncan-Glancy said she would leave the Scottish Parliament in May, stating: “I do not wish for a personal friendship to become a distraction.” Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said Starmer “must come clean” about what he was told before the appointment, adding: “We won’t let this go.”
