‘The Fraud’ links Labour minister Steve Reed to hacked data scandal

Paul Holden’s upcoming book The Fraud promises to expose “Keir Starmer, Morgan McSweeney, and the Crisis of British Democracy”. As part of its release, the Canary has serialised the opening chapters, which you can read here and here. Revelations from the book have also been published via Inside Croydon – specifically because the story relates to the outlet itself and Croydon MP Steve Reed.

Labour VS Labour

Inside Croydon titled its article as follows:

The Fraud: how Reed’s Labour spied on Croydon councillors

The ‘Reed’ in question is Steve Reed, who currently serves as Starmer’s housing secretary (having previously been the environment secretary). Reed has attracted controversy in both of these roles, as reported by the Canary and others:

Croydon MP Steve Reed has become Housing Secretary. The UK’s largest landlord association is happy about it. pic.twitter.com/YK1MMBa1mA

— JW (@jwsal) September 5, 2025

Reed is a key figure in Labour Together, which is the movement McSweeney used to manoeuvre Starmer into power. While campaign groups are a normal part of politics, Labour Together stands accused of hiding donations; of launching smear campaigns against political rivals (including the Canary), and of presenting Starmer in a misleading light to win the Labour leadership by promising left-wing policies and then pivoting to the right.

Steve Reed

Summing up what Labour Croydon was up to under Steve Reed, Inside Croydon wrote (emphasis added):

To recap: hacked data, taken from an independent local news site, was used to identify the site’s confidential informants, who were providing the public with details of Croydon’s poor governance. This stolen information was then used to launch Labour Party disciplinary proceedings against the site’s sources. All of this was known to some of the most powerful people in the Labour Party bureaucracy — General Secretary David Evans and Alex Barros-Curtis [the party’s executive director of legal affairs; since 2024, a Labour MP] most notably — who were copied in, allegedly with the approval of Steve Reed.

The kicker: at the time, Reed was the party’s shadow justice minister.

The independent local news site was Inside Croydon itself, and they note:

The intent of the hack was obvious: to identify the sources used by the outlet in reporting on local matters and, by revealing them, to discredit those sources as well as the outlet that had failed to protect them.

The Information Commissioner’s Office stated the hack was likely the result of an individual purchasing passwords from the dark web.

When they had access to Inside Croydon’s Twitter account, the hacker posted a message which outed three confidential sources. These individuals were Labour councillors who had criticised the leadership of Croydon Council. As noted in the article, the leadership was run by Steve Reed’s allies.

While the identity of the hacker remains anonymous, the hacked data was with Labour official Ruth Bannister not long after it was stolen. And as Inside Croydon report:

Outsiders may have expected that the Labour Party, its most senior bureaucrats, and Steve Reed himself would have baulked at handling material illegally hacked from an independent media website. Arguably, everybody who came into contact with the material should have contacted the appropriate authorities in the UK, as well as Inside Croydon, to inform them of the situation.

Instead, party officials decided to spread the hacked information far and wide.

Labour did not respond when Inside Croydon informed them that they had potentially committed a criminal offence.

The Canary has contacted Steve Reed’s office for comment.

Featured image Chris McAndrew (Wikimedia) / Tadie88 (Wikimedia)