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The Prime Minister’s Office has declined to reveal how many WhatsApp messages sent or received by Keir Starmer over a four-day period were saved for the public record.
Their refusal of a Freedom of Information (FOI) by Byline Times raises questions about the Labour Government leader’s promise — before he took power — that he would make it “easier to hold government to account” and end the “outrageous way government departments refuse freedom of information requests”.
In its response, the Cabinet Office explained that fulfilling the request would involve a manual review of all records from the specified period to identify whether any messages originated via WhatsApp. It said the cost of retrieving and reviewing the relevant data between 7 and 10 December 2024 would be too great and that the department’s records are organised by subject matter, not by communication medium.
The refusal comes after years of mounting concerns, widely reported by this paper, about the use of private communication platforms for official government business.
WhatsApp, alongside other secure messaging services, became an increasingly popular tool to communicate for both ministers and civil servants under the Conservative Party. But their use raises serious questions about transparency, record-keeping, and accountability. At the time, Labour seemed to agree that the Conservative’s use of WhatsApp had gone too far.
In 2021, Starmer wrote an essay saying: “Where the current Tory government has muddied the waters of transparency on the … things it does, I want to make it easier to hold government to account… That means everything from ending the outrageous way government departments refuse freedom of information requests.”
In the same year, Labour’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, declared that ministers “must not govern by private messages that are then deleted”. She said at the time that “this is completely undemocratic and an attack on transparency and accountability”.
Between 7 and 10 December 2024, Starmer engaged in significant diplomatic activities and policy decisions. He embarked on a diplomatic tour to the Middle East, visiting the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Cyprus.
In Abu Dhabi, Starmer met with Emirati President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan to discuss enhancing bilateral relations and advancing a Free Trade Agreement with the Gulf Cooperation Council.
In Riyadh, he engaged with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. During his Cyprus trip, the first by a UK PM since 1993, Starmer visited RAF Akrotiri, a site from which hundreds of British spy planes have flown over the bombed-out Gaza strip.
Domestically, Starmer also announced the termination of the Refugee Employability Programme, a scheme initiated by the previous government to assist refugees in integrating into the workforce. Additionally, Starmer welcomed the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, describing it as “barbaric,” and pledged £11 million in humanitarian aid to support the Syrian people.
Despite such a busy schedule, it is not known if there was any WhatsApp communication to the Prime Minister surrounding these major policy events and meetings over these four days. Due to the FOI refusal, it is also not known if any were later saved for public record.
In the Cabinet Office’s response, the Government acknowledged that it holds communications on WhatsApp, but only when those communications contain “substantive discussions or decisions” relevant to Government business.
This is in line with guidance from the Government Digital Service, which stresses the need to record communications that have significant public or legal implications. Despite this policy, the Prime Minister’s Office said there is no system in place to track the medium of communication in a way that would allow for an easy retrieval of relevant WhatsApp messages.
The issue of WhatsApp communications and public record-keeping is not new. Previous reports by Byline Times, including those covering the use of WhatsApp by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson during the COVID-19 crisis, have highlighted how the Conservative government repeatedly resisted disclosing messages sent on private channels.
In 2023, following a legal challenge, the High Court ruled that Johnson’s WhatsApp messages from key moments during the pandemic had to be released to the COVID-19 inquiry.
Labour has had its own WhatsApp scandals. In February 2025, the secret chat of a group of Labour MPS, reportedly called ‘Trigger Me Timbers,’ was leaked, replete with offensive messages, including racist, sexist, and homophobic remarks.
The Mail on Sunday’s exposé led to the suspension of two Labour MPs, Andrew Gwynne and Oliver Ryan, as well as 11 local councillors, including Gwynne’s wife. At the time, the Labour Party responded by pledging to take swift action to uphold its standards.
Perhaps aware of the challenges of such opacity, in December 2024, the Scottish Government announced a ban on using WhatsApp and other non-corporate messaging services for official business.
This decision came after an external review found issues with the use and retention of messaging app records, particularly following revelations from the UK COVID inquiry that some ministers, including Nicola Sturgeon and John Swinney, had deleted WhatsApp messages during the pandemic.
The Labour Government’s refusal of Byline’s FOI request has prompted campaigners advocating for stronger record-keeping of government communications to voice concerns about how future historians will understand how decisions are made and information shared — especially when communications occur on digital platforms that may not be captured by traditional record-keeping systems.
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Richard Ovenden, the Bodley’s Librarian at the University of Oxford and a vocal critic of the use of disappearing messages in politics, told Byline Times: “The use of commercial, encrypted messaging systems by government officials, civil servants, special advisors and leading politicians undermines our democracy, weakens trust in our government and our political system, and weakens our long-term sense of who we are as a nation, and where we have come from.”
He added: “Maintaining such records as public information ensures transparency in decision-making, integrity in those making decisions, and enables voters, tax-payers and the wider public to have faith in our political systems.”
For critics like Ovenden, as Labour faces questions over its commitment to transparency, the refusal to disclose such records risks undermining public trust.
In an age of instant, vanishing communications, the challenge of safeguarding democratic accountability has never seemed more urgent.