Leaks reveal failed journalist Paul Mason secretly advised ex-Prime Minister Keir Starmer, his Defence Secretary and now-Chancellor John Healey, and top aides on important security matters.
Mason’s belligerent pronouncements on the need for Britain to “deter” Russia through a massive military build-up influenced Labour’s policies and rhetoric.
Mason was secretly working with notorious British military intelligence operative Chris Donnelly to turn Labour toward a hardline position on Russia and defense spending.
Since the Ukraine proxy war erupted, Donnelly has secretly guided London on escalation strategies, including attacks on Kerch Bridge, and the creation of Gladio-style terrorist armies in Ukraine.
All along, he and Mason have fed lines to Healey and other Labour frontbenchers on the conflict, while advising how Britain should respond to political and military developments, even authoring key speeches for Healey.
Healey has consistently pushed for Britain to prime itself for direct conflict with Russia, even resigning over Starmer’s supposed refusal to increase defense spending. Leaked emails indicate these positions were influenced by Mason and Donnelly’s covert influence. As Chancellor, Healey can now fund their apocalyptic vision.
John Healey, whose dramatic June 11 resignation as Britain’s Defence Secretary precipitated Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s fall, has returned to government as Chancellor under newly-anointed premier Andy Burnham.
Healey’s departure was triggered by Starmer and his administration being “unable” and “unwilling” to “commit the resources that the nation needs to defend the country,” making Britain “less safe.” This followed four years in opposition, then two in government pushing for more militaristic stances on Russia, and demanding ramped up state spending on defense. As Chancellor, Healey now has the chance to fund Britain’s military to the hilt at the expense of the country’s already hollowed-out social sector.
Leaked emails reviewed by The Grayzone reveal how Healey’s militaristic stances on Russia were secretly influenced by a brain trust consisting of the former celebrity leftist and failed journalist Paul Mason, and the scandal-stained British intelligence veteran Chris Donnelly.
See the leaked email communications between Paul Mason, Chris Donnelly, John Healey and other advisors here.
Mason and Donnelly exploited their high-level access to Healey to foment wider support within the Labour party, and Starmer’s government, for the most aggressive policies possible on the Ukraine conflict. Along the way, Donnelly consistently advised Healey to support dangerously escalatory actions, arguing if Moscow was provoked as a result, then “so be it.”
Donnelly is most notorious as the founder of the Integrity Initiative, a covert information warfare network spanning Europe, encompassing networks of pro-war influencers and journalists, and dedicated to the mission of flooding Western media with anti-Russian propaganda.
For his part, the self-described “antifascist” Mason now cools his heels at a NATO-funded think tank after burning out as a maverick lefty correspondent for Channel 4 and the BBC. Mason’s public image as a celebrity leftist imploded after The Grayzone exposed him as a security state collaborator who covertly pitching the UK government on his own Integrity Initiative-style propaganda network, while furnishing British officials with a bizarre “mind-map” of the antiwar left containing targets he sought to neutralize. Those targets included this publication, which Mason plotted to sue for our factual reporting on his machinations.
Emails reviewed by The Grayzone show both figures were in continuous contact with Healey from 2021 onwards, providing him with advice on how to escalate conflict with Russia and increase the defense budget, while angling for plum appointments as national security advisors.
Advising Healey to ignore “alarmist” talk of nuclear war
In his resignation letter, Healey took aim at Starmer’s “defence investment plan,” declaring it to be “well short of what is required for defence and the country at this dangerous time.” He stated it was “imperative” to “speed up the readiness” of Britain’s military to fight within two years, to be prepared to wage all-out war on Russia by 2030. Healey is now ideally placed as Chancellor to finance these objectives, when London is already committedly on the warpath.
Five days before Burnham took office, it was announced the British government would soon encourage citizens to “stockpile food, water and medicine to prepare for war.” A countrywide “national campaign to get the country ready for conflict will also include a multi-day crisis response exercise next year.”
The campaign seemed to embrace advice Donnelley had been providing to Healey since April 2022, when he emphasized the “urgency” of “moving to the kind of wartime footing needed to prosecute” the Ukraine proxy conflict “successfully.” In those exchanges with Healey, Donnelly demanded “a big rethink” by the British government “on spending, forces, posture, readiness.”
At the same time, as The Grayzone first revealed, he was secretly furnishing the Ministry of Defence with blueprints for a campaign of state terror against Russia for the Ministry of Defence. These included a plan to bomb the Kerch Bridge connecting Crimea to the Russian mainland – a proposal that was executed by Ukrainian intelligence operatives on October 2022. Donnelly’s long-held fantasies of exploiting Ukraine as a beachhead for a Western-wide war on Russia are now a reality.
As the conflict broadens, threatening to involve new NATO partner states, Donnelly believes there is nothing to fear. In fact, he used Healey as his channel for encouraging the Labour Party to adopt his escalatory master plan.
Around the time when Donnelly’s Kerch Bridge plot was being executed, he was secretly counseling Healey and Labour to avoid “alarmist” public discussions about nuclear war, for fear such careless talk could “stop our support of Ukraine.”
Donnelly’s covert role as counselor of Labour’s most influential defense officials appears to have brought Britain closer to the brink of direct conflict with Russia. Exposing the private discussions that led the country to this perilous point is clearly in the public interest.
Healey recruits Mason and Donnelly to get tough on Russia
In August 2021, the UK Spectator’s gossip columnist revealed that Paul Mason was providing private consultancy services to Healey. The leaked emails seen by The Grayzone now demonstrate that Mason’s influence on Healey went much deeper, revealing that the former celebrity leftist gained access to Healey’s key advisors, defense and foreign policy apparatchiks close to Starmer, and Starmer himself, first while in opposition, then in government.
In fact, Mason had been privately contracted in January 2021 by Healey to help build the “core narratives” of Labour’s defense policy.
This included constructing detailed positions on NATO, the “Russia threat”, industrial strategy, embedding the military “further into civil society,” Britain’s nuclear deterrent, “special relationship” with the US, and the ever-crucial question of defense spending. Mason’s outputs included a “speech, three articles and core Labour narratives for external/internal use” to be delivered within weeks. The impact on Labour’s rhetoric and policies on military and war matters was immediate.
In early February 2021, Healey delivered a controversial, Mason-influenced speech in which he implicitly attacked Corbyn’s personal opposition to NATO membership and nuclear weapons, declaring Labour’s commitment to both “unshakeable”. Over prior weeks, Mason had forwarded a number of briefings and speech drafts to Healey, directly channelling Chris Donnelly’s thinking and rhetoric. Eerily foreshadowing Healey’s grounds for resigning as Defence Minister, these materials called for investing significantly in London’s ability to “deter” Russia, and “[taking] seriously the expansion of Britain’s defence industrial capacity.”
Mason advocated Healey conduct “briefings and engagement with Labour MPs, think tanks and influencers,” to “create a ‘script’ from which” Labour’s defense messaging would emerge. However, Healey’s comments rankled Labour’s remaining Corbynite lawmakers. Kim Johnson MP formally emailed him saying she was a “little concerned” the party had apparently “shifted position” on NATO and nukes “without any debate or discussion” with parliamentarians. “Do you have any plans to communicate with MP’s/Lords[?]” she enquired.
Healey forwarded her email to Mason, who dismissed Johnson’s suggestions Labour had “shifted position.” He argued Healey’s comments simply reflected how “we are shutting down the possibility” Labour could support unilateral disarmament, or go “anti-NATO”. Mason was avowedly “keen to have this argument out overtly” with opponents of nuclear weapons. He also provided “confidential” feedback from Donnelly, who praised Healey’s “really excellent” speech. “There is a lot here I can help on,” Donnelly wrote, including “acquisition,” and the necessity of “culture change” within Britain’s military.
Donnelly encourages ‘so be it’ attitude on provoking nuclear war
Mason concluded by telling Healey, “I want to set up a meeting with me, you and [Donnelly],” which the Shadow Defence Secretary said he’d “very much like.” After a personal rendezvous brokered by Mason, Donnelly began regularly sending briefings and papers to Healey through private channels, often circumventing his formal advisors. His deranged prescriptions were particularly pronounced in a January 2022 exchange with Healey, inspired by then-Defence Secretary Ben Wallace indicating Britain “would be open to supplying further ‘defensive’ weaponry” to Kiev.
At this time, the drums of proxy war were beating with growing intensity in Donbass, where Kiev was preparing an offensive against the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. Healey personally requested Donnelly’s “advice on what sort of weapons or systems might be considered or requested” for Ukraine, given Wallace’s comments. Donnelly bluntly declared, “what Ukraine needs most of all is long-range strike” capability.
But in a rare display of prudence, the Shadow Defense Secretary pushed back on his advisor’s proposal. Healey noted that supplying Kiev with long-range missiles would represent “a big policy change” and “provocation to Putin.” He observed how the “long-term security risk” of Ukraine possessing and developing such offensive weaponry was the “primary problem for Russia.” Healey angsted, “if diplomatic route does not deliver then Putin only has military options, and may consider the costs of inaction now would be greater than the costs of military escalation.”
Donnelly dismissed Healey’s concerns about provoking Russia into a wider war. He suggested Putin was actually unconcerned by “military issues,” and “the real threat [to Russia] is Ukraine choosing to become a Western-style liberal democracy.” Donnelly insisted that Moscow’s resistance to NATO simply stemmed from the prospect of Kiev “being free to choose a different path.” This was supposedly “the most likely thing to cause spontaneous popular uprising” against the Kremlin, hence Putin’s NATO worries.
Donnelly then thundered for providing Ukraine with long-range missiles, consequences be demanded. “If that is provocation, so be it,” he proclaimed.
By October 2022, with the proxy war against Russia in full swing, a Healey aide fretted about the possibility of a nuclear exchange. He solicited Donnelly’s “thoughts on what Labour should say publicly about the possible use of tactical nuclear weapons by Putin,” and what the party’s “talking points should be” on the matter.
Donnelly responded by cautioning against discussing nuclear war “in an alarmist way,” as this could “intimidate the West into capitulating” and “stop our support of Ukraine.” He claimed NATO would simply “destroy Russian forces in Ukraine with conventional weapons,” thus averting nuclear war altogether.
Mason: Gen Z ‘will fight’ Russia, through conscription if necessary
By January 2024, Russia and Ukraine were still locked a full-blown war, hundreds of thousands of men were dead, and Mason was still on the line with Donnelly, plotting an even greater escalation.
In an email exchange with Donnelly, the faded journalist declared that “in confidence,” he was “hoping to work for John Healey soon,” now in a formal capacity. Mason cautioned, however, that “I have to be careful what I say in public from now on if I become [Healey’s] adviser.”
Behind-the-scenes, Mason was spinning out unhinged proposals to precipitate a “big expansion” in Britain’s military reserves. This included “recruiting tech nerds and putting them at or close to the front line,” to boost London’s drone and electronic warfare capabilities.
Ever the social justice warrior, Mason was also preoccupied with compelling more women to pursue technology and science degrees, preparing them for “defence and nuclear jobs.” Among his bold ideas was creating “new kinds of units” within the British Army, such as “Women only artillery? Muslim-only units?”
While Mason’s ideas ran the gamut of half-baked liberal interventionist ploys, he “firmly” believed Gen Z “will fight” in a future war with Russia. And he was just the man to make military service cool again. “Motivating them is a big cultural challenge and something I want to focus on” with Healey, Mason mused.
But if jumping the trenches in a potentially apocalyptic land war against Russia did not appeal to the sensibilities of extremely online Gen Z’ers – who state in large numbers that they would never fight for their country – they would have to be press ganged into service.
“I am in favour of a big expansion in [British Army] reserves and a cultural change to make it happen – with conscription as a last option,” Mason explained.
He added that the prospect of working directly alongside then-Defence Secretary Healey was fueling his repeated failed attempts to enter parliament. However, Mason didn’t give much to his chances, as “Labour are very factional and I’m in the wrong faction.” In response, Donnelly said it would be “wonderful” if Mason worked for Healey, “even more so” if he was the Defence Secretary’s parliamentary private secretary, as an MP, because “we definitely need you in parliament.”
Two days later, Donnelly forwarded a “Guide to Leadership Change in Russia” to Healey. It was privately produced by his employer, shadowy intelligence cutout Earendel Associates. The firm has served as a front for Donnelly’s construction of secret Ukrainian terror armies. Its report outlined scenarios for removing Putin from power, including “decisive military reversal or defeat in Ukraine.” It dismissed any suggestion a palace coup in Moscow would produce “significant and lasting dysfunctionality of state institutions,” or the country’s outright “breakdown”.
In response, Healey gratefully praised the “really excellent paper.” He said its “well referenced” arguments for regime change in Russia needed “to be taken to the heart of UK (and especially US) leadership thinking.” Healey may have had an opportunity to personally do so subsequently.
On July 4, Labour was elected with a historic parliamentary majority. Within days, Healey and Starmer appeared at that year’s NATO summit, pledging Britain would be the “leading European nation” in the alliance, and Ukraine’s “most reliable ally.”
Britain ‘adapting as war requires’ at Donnelly’s demand
While the victory in London filled Mason and Donnelly with hope for expanding the Ukraine proxy war, subsequent developments in Washington threatened their ambitions.
On November 8 2024, a “depressed” Donnelly emailed Mason to commiserate over Donald Trump’s victory in the US Presidential election a night prior. He lamented that Trump, who had campaigned on a pledge to negotiate an immediate peace between Ukraine and Russia, will be out to change things in a big way,” potentially meaning “serious danger for Ukraine” and “a very big shake up for NATO.”
In response to Trump’s triumph, Donnelly suggested Britain’s national defence and security, including “industrial and procurement systems,” required “fundamental restructuring.” He enquired, “do you think anyone in government realises this?”
Mason responded, “I think John Healey does.”
He went on to complain that “Starmer does not have any political geostrategists in his team.”
Naturally, Mason saw an easy way to fix the problem. It entailed Starmer hiring him to guide the war effort.
“That’s something I could remedy if they would let me but they don’t,” he commented.
Mason said he was working with the Tony Blair-linked think tank Progressive Britain to build “a pro-defence/UK strategic interest lobby” among the Parliamentary Labour Party. They also founded a now-defunct outfit called Labour Friends of Ukraine to push for more spending on weapons.
Mason signed off, “what’s the three things I should push in face to face contacts with Labour?”
Donnelly was “very glad indeed” to learn Healey agreed with him that Britain’s national security required “fundamental restructuring.” Donnelly had “heard nothing from him since just after” the July general election. He went on to state, “the most important thing to get across” to Labour parliamentarians was how Britain’s “national governance system” is “dysfunctional”.
Until being “fixed” according to Donnelly’s specifications, he believed “the government will be unable to develop and implement the policies and strategy we need to face what’s coming.”
Deploying another series of buzzwords for massive increases in military spending, Donnelly called for “fundamental reform” of all Britain’s military structures, including commissioning and industry, to make them “permanently adaptable” as “war absolutely requires.” Donnelly warned any increased defense spending would be wasted without these reforms in place, “and we will be completely screwed.”
Healey’s resignation as Defence Minister and reassignment to the Chancellor of the Exchequer under a new Labour administration appear to have secured one the key goals which Donnelly and Mason have lobbied for behind the scenes.
The war will go on. And if it turns nuclear, then “so be it.”