Last week, I reported on the fascinating phenomenon of Labour Party activists traveling from the UK to battleground states to campaign for Kamala Harris. This move has frustrated Republicans here and Conservatives in the UK.
“The flailing Harris-Walz campaign is seeking foreign influence to boost its radical message – because they know they can’t win the American people,” said Donald Trump’s campaign manager Susie Wiles. “The Harris campaign’s acceptance and use of this illegal foreign assistance is just another feeble attempt in a long line of anti-American election interference.”
The Trump campaign has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission about Labour’s stunt. Of course, the complaint serves as a way to tell Labour to mind its own business. The Spectator’s Freddy Gray writes that the campaign filed the complaint to “stir that very American spirit of contempt towards foreign elites telling them [what] to do.”
Labour apparatchiks are on the defensive about the pushback, with PM and party leader Keir Starmer insisting that the staffers are volunteering their time and resources. One wonk grumbled to Politico, “It says a lot about the current level of political discourse on both sides of the Atlantic that an innocuous LinkedIn post from a party staffer has turned into a diplomatic event.”
It's not the first time Labour has tried to intervene in American elections. Starmer told reporters that his party staffers “have gone over pretty much every election.”
“The Trump campaign isn’t seriously upset about a bunch of young right-on activists having a jolly time in America lecturing the locals on the perils of right-wing populism,” Gray claims. “If anything, Labour’s amateur efforts will backfire – similar to the way the Guardian newspaper’s obnoxious ‘pen pal’ campaign to swing voters in Ohio helped George W. Bush win re-election in 2004.”
Related: Labour Party Activists Are Planning to Stump for Kamala in Battleground States
The question that hangs over Labour’s stunt is how it would affect the party’s relationship with a second Trump administration should the former president win. Certain Labour politicians, most notably the radical racial grievance-monger, Foreign Secretary David Lammy, have publicly criticized Trump, but the party has tried to patch things up in case the GOP takes back the White House.
“It’s well documented that Lammy previously attacked Trump and even led a protest against him having a state visit,” Katy Balls reports at The Spectator. “In government, Lammy and Starmer have changed their tune.”
Lammy has tried to establish relationships with Republicans, including JD Vance, while Starmer has said that he “will work with whoever the American people return as their president in their elections.”
“I spent time in New York with President Trump, had dinner with him and my purpose in doing that was to make sure that between the two of us, we established a good relationship, which we did, and we’re grateful for him for making the time,” Starmer told the press.
One of the thorniest issues is that Trump is so much different from the Republican leaders of the past — at least in the eyes of UK politicians.
“With a more conventional Republican leader, a Labour-Republican alliance wouldn’t be a particular issue,” Balls writes. “The so-called special relationship and basic diplomacy is such that the two countries will work closely, regardless of personalities. The risk remains, however, that a Labour government is simply more objectionable to Trump than a Conservative one.”
Of course, all of that is in the future. In the meantime, Labour’s invasion of swing states is a prime opportunity for the Trump campaign to highlight how the worry about “foreign influence” on our elections only goes one way.
Gray concludes:
The idea that today a bunch of Labour kids larping as agents for progress overseas might change the course of American history is laughable. It’s about as credible as the theory that Vladimir Putin secretly controlled the Donald Trump campaign in 2016. And that is the real point. Even if she wins, ‘Labourgate’ allegations against Harris would not dominate the news for two years, as the Trump Russiagate story did. When the international liberal left tries to influence elections, it sees itself as acting righteously. When their political opponents do the same, it cries foul play. The Trump campaign is just highlighting the hypocrisy.
No, Labour probably won’t move the needle too much in this election. But it’s still worth pointing out how the Democrats are totally fine with foreigners coming over and campaigning for them even though they cried for years about fictional foreign interference in Trump’s favor.
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