Donald Trump has surprised the British Prime Minister Keir Starmeroff guard. The Republican candidate for the United States presidential election has launched a serious attack against the United Kingdom Labor Party, which he accuses of interfering in the presidential campaign. Although for decades it has been normal for Labor volunteers to come to help a sister party like the American Democrats in the final stretch of the electoral contest, Trump’s team has filed a formal complaint with the Federal Election Commission “for interference and illegal foreign campaign contributions.”
The incident that sparked the spark was a message posted on the social network LinkedIn by Sofia Patel, the Labor Party’s Director of Operations. “I already have 100 Labor Party workers (old and new) who are going to go to the United States in the coming weeks, heading to North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Virginia. I have ten spots free for those who want to go to the key electoral state of North Carolina. We will take care of the accommodation. Write to me if you are interested,” Patel announced.
That message, and the meetings of some key members of Starmer’s team with the environment of the Democratic candidate, Kamala Harris, which some American media have reported, have been enough for Trump and his allies to express apparent anger and discontent over what happened, and they came to compare it with the war of independence against the British at the end of the 18th century. “When representatives of the British Government previously tried to visit the United States door to door, it did not end well for them,” Trump’s lawyers have written to the commission, in a threatening reference to what the American Revolution was.
The lawsuit claims that members of Starmer’s entourage have advised Harris’ team in recent months. They point out Morgan McSweeney, the Prime Minister’s Chief of StaffDeborah Mattinson, its Director of Strategies or Matthew Doyle, the Director of Communications at Downing Street.
Calm messages
The incident has caught Prime Minister Starmer traveling to Samoa, where he will participate in the Commonwealth summit. “Members of the (Labor) party have gone there (to the United States) practically every time there have been elections,” he said. “They do it in their free time, as volunteers,” he pointed out, to rule out any official strategy on the part of their training.
The prudence with which Keir Starmer always handles his political movements had led him, since his time in the opposition, to have gestures of good will both with Trump – with whom he had dinner in New York last September – and with Kamala Harris, aware that either of the two could end up occupying the House White next year. It is an unwritten rule for any British prime minister to preserve the “special relationship” between London and Washington, regardless of political sympathies.
It is still early to determine whether Trump’s untimely attack is more a last-minute electoral tactic or whether the incident could have future consequences if the Republican candidate wins the November elections.
“In two weeks (November 5), Americans will again reject big government oppression, as we did in 1776,” said Susie Wiles, co-chair of the Trump campaign. She also added fuel to the fire and accused Harris of “seeking foreign influence to promote his radical message.”
Since early this Wednesday, messages issued from Downing Street have attempted to quell a fire that, caused by Trump, no one knows how far it can spread its flames. “Any private citizen has the right to use their time and money however they want. It is not unusual for party members to come to support a sister party in another country,” said Steve Reed, British Environment Minister, on the BBC. “But none of this has been organized by the Labor Party,” he added. By then, Patel’s LinkedIn message had already been deleted.
“I don’t think that the fact that some British politicians go to the United States to tell citizens who they should vote for is going to have enormous influence,” the Labor president of the Foreign Relations Commission added to the debate, with a touch of irony. Exteriors of Parliament, Emily Thornberry.
But in the face of the appeasement attempts of the British Government and the Labor Party, Trump’s especially incendiary allies, such as UK populist politician Nigel Farageor the billionaire owner of the social network X (formerly Twitter), Elon Musk, have contributed to fueling the controversy.
“Our relationship with the United States, when it comes to matters of intelligence, defense or trade, is the most important in the world,” said the leader of the Reform UK party, despite the fact that he himself has traveled to the other side of the Atlantic on countless occasions to help his friend Trump. “To be perceived as officially collaborating with the rival candidate of the man who is going to win is a huge political mistake,” Farage said. Musk has gone even further and has assured in X that the arrival of Labor volunteers to the United States “is illegal.”
