Trump’s campaign says the UK’s Labour Party is meddling in the race

The campaign for Donald Trump has said that the Labour Party of British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is “blatantly foreign interference” in the U.S. presidential election because some workers went to Britain to help campaign for Kamala Harris.

The campaign team for the Republican candidate has sent a protest to the Federal Election Commission in Washington, D.C., asking them to look into what they called “obviously illegal” donations from Labour to the Harris campaign.

British political workers have been going to the U.S. before elections for a long time. Usually, Labour Party activists support the Democrats, which is the sister party of the Labour Party, and Conservative Party activists support the Republicans.

Some top Labour advisers have been traveling to meet Democrat strategists in the past few months, according to British officials who did not want to be named. This is because the Democrats won the British election by a huge margin in July.

One thing they talked about was how Labour got back almost all of the areas that used to be industrialized but stopped being so in 2019.

Starmer, the leader of Labour, said that the complaint would not hurt ties with Trump if the former president wins again on November 5. He said that Labour supporters were volunteering on their own time.

But the complaint could make things more difficult.

Trump liked Starmer when they met in September at Trump Tower. Trump is friendly with Nigel Farage, a right-wing leader in Britain, and used to be friendly with Boris Johnson, who was prime minister.

Chair of Republican Overseas UK Greg Swenson said that Trump is hard to predict, but if he wins next month, this event probably won’t hurt his relationship with Starmer.

Swenson told Reuters, “Trump takes things personally and lets personal fights affect him.” “But I believe Trump will move on.” There might be some scar tissue, but I don’t think so.

RULES FOR OTHER COUNTRIES

The United States has rules that say foreigners can help with political campaigns but not give money.

The claims of interference will depend on whether Labour paid for any activists’ bills.

The Trump complaint used news stories and a LinkedIn post that has since been deleted from Sofia Patel, who is the head of operations at Britain’s Labour Party. In it, she said that in the next few weeks, nearly 100 current and former Labour Party staff would be traveling to the U.S. to help elect Harris as the Democratic vice-president.

In her post, Patel said she had 10 openings in North Carolina and added, “We will take care of your housing.”

It was made clear by Labour that any party members who took part would have to pay for it themselves. Other helpers helped with housing.
Before, the FEC fined Bernie Sanders’ campaign because the Australian Labor Party paid for workers to come to the U.S. and help his campaign by paying for their flights and food.

“I write on behalf of Donald J. Trump for President 2024, Inc. to request an immediate investigation into blatant foreign interference in the 2024 Presidential Election in the form of apparent illegal foreign national contributions,” it stated.

“The LinkedIn post is all the proof someone from another country needs to show that they meddled in our elections… It is easy to see that the meddling is happening.

The Trump team said in a press release called “The British are coming” that “Kamala’s dangerously liberal policies and rhetoric” were influenced by the “far-left Labour Party.”

Starmer told reporters that Labour workers had been to almost every U.S. election while he was on a flight to Samoa. “They’re doing it in their spare time, they’re doing it as volunteers, they’re staying I think with other volunteers over there,” he stated. “That’s really straightforward.”