Donald Trump’s campaign accuses UK Labour of illegally helping Kamala Harris

Donald Trump’s campaign has accused the governing UK Labour party of illegally helping Kamala Harris’s campaign by helping co-ordinate staffers to help Democrats campaign in swing states.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer played down the Trump campaign’s accusations. Picture: AFP

Donald Trump’s campaign has accused the British Labour Party of “blatant foreign interference” for helping its staffers join Democrats on the campaign trail, setting the Starmer Labour government up for a clash with any second Trump administration that could tarnish the famed ‘special relationship’ between the two nations.

In a letter dated Monday (Tuesday AEDT) October 21 to the US Federal Election Commission, Trump’s deputy general counsel Gary Lawkowski accused both the Kamala Harris campaign and the Labour Party of flouting American laws against foreigners providing financial or in kind contributions to political candidates in US elections.

“This past week marked the 243 anniversary of the surrender of British forces at the Battle of Yorktown, a military victory that ensured that the United States would be politically independent of Great Britain. It appears that the Labour Party and the Harris for President campaign have forgotten the message,” the letter began.

The Trump campaign had noticed a widely reported LinkedIn post by Sofia Patel, Labour’s director of operations, from last week, that asked for volunteers to help Democrats campaign in American swing states.

“I have nearly 100 Labour Party staff (current and former) going to the US in the next few weeks heading to North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Virginia,” she wrote on the now-deleted post. “I have ten spots available for anyone to head to the battleground state of North Carolina — we will sort your housing.”

Donald Trump at a campaign rally in North Carolina. Picture: Getty Images

The legal letter, which requested the FEC open an investigation immediately, said: “Those searching for foreign interference in our elections need to look no further than Ms Patel’s LinkedIn post … The interference is occurring in plain sight.”

On a flight to Samoa for the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting the UK prime minister played down any prospect of a diplomatic row, saying Labour staffers had “gone over pretty much every election”.

“They’re doing it in their spare time, they’re doing it as volunteers, they’re staying I think with other volunteers over there. That’s what they’ve done in previous elections, that’s what they’re doing in this election and that’s really straightforward.”

He added that he had a “good, constructive discussion” with Donald Trump on a recent trip to New York and didn’t expect the complaint to affect their relationship.

Nigel Farage, UK Reform party leader, on social media described the in-kind help to Harris as a “terrible decision” that “insulted the incoming Trump administration”.

Former UK prime minister Liz Truss told CNN on Wednesday (Thursday AEDT) she thought it was “incredibly arrogant of the Labour Party to think that they have anything to offer the American people”.

The letter pointed to earlier fines levied on the Bernie Sanders campaign in 2016 and the Australian Labor Party, which had similarly sent volunteers to help in that year’s presidential campaign.

“The Commission determined that ALP and Bernie violated the foreign national prohibition and assessed each a civil penalty of US$14,500,” the letter pointed out. “The British Labour Party appears to be following the same model as the ALP”.

The FEC does allow for foreigners to campaign in US elections provided they are “uncompensated volunteers”.

One of Trump’s top political advisers, Susie Wiles, told the New York Times on Tuesday (Wednesday AEDT) that “the far-left Labour Party has inspired Kamala’s dangerously liberal policies and rhetoric”.

Separately, leaked documents from a UK not for profit Centre for Countering Digital Hate, obtained by Racket, revealed “kill Musk’s Twitter” to be one of the top priorities for an organisation closely aligned with the Starmer government, whose founder, Morgan McSweeney, is currently advising the Harris campaign according to Politico.

1) EXCLUSIVE DOCUMENTS: Working w/ @mtaibbi we report on @CCDHate documents showing the Labour Party's political front's objective is "Kill Musk's Twitter" thru "Advertising focus" meaning harass his advertisers.

See internal documents provided by a whistleblower. pic.twitter.com/HRHbeHimAF

— Paul D. Thacker (@thackerpd) October 22, 2024

The owner of X, formerly called Twitter, Elon Musk has become a prominent financial and public backer of the Donald Trump campaign, and has infuriated some Democrats since his purchase of the platform in 2022 for winding back censorship of “hate speech”.

The accusation of foreign interference by the UK follows repeated accusations that the Trump campaign benefited from Russian attempts to interfere in the US election, starting in 2016 when some of Trump’s political staff had meetings with Russian nationals allegedly to discuss the then upcoming presidential election.

The Mueller report later uncovered how a Kremlin-aligned Russian business spent US100,000 on Facebook advertisements that promoted Donald Trump’s campaign.