Donald Trump’s campaign has accused British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour Party of “blatant foreign interference” in the US presidential election after some volunteers travelled to help campaign for Vice President Kamala Harris.
The Republican candidate’s camp has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission in Washington, calling for an investigation into what it termed apparently illegal contributions from Labour to the Harris campaign.
British political activists have long travelled to the US ahead of elections, with those from the centre-left Labour Party typically supporting the Democrats, its sister party, and Conservatives and the right-wing Reform backing the Republicans.
Labour leader Starmer denied that the complaint would damage relations with Trump if the former president wins again on November 5, saying Labour supporters were volunteering in their own time.
But the complaint is a potential complication as Trump is already close to Britain’s right-wing politician Nigel Farage and former prime minister Boris Johnson, both of whom are critical of Starmer. The British prime minister met Trump at Trump Tower in September in a bid to build a relationship ahead of the vote.
“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,” the complaint said.
British officials told Reuters that some senior Labour advisers travelled to meet Democrat strategists in recent months, on the back of their landslide victory in the British election in July. One topic they discussed was how Labour won back almost all the former industrialised areas that abandoned them in 2019.
According to US rules, foreigners can volunteer on election campaigns but cannot make financial contributions, and the allegations of interference will hinge on whether Labour covered any activists’ costs.
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