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Donald Trump has filed a legal complaint against the UK’s Labour party, alleging “illegal foreign campaign contributions and interference” to help Kamala Harris in the US presidential election.
The complaint filed by Trump’s campaign to the independent Federal Election Commission accuses the Labour party of sending strategists and staffers to help the Democratic presidential candidate’s election campaign and says Harris has accepted the help. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, however, defended the aides, saying they were volunteering in their spare time.
“When representatives of the British government previously sought to go door-to-door in America, it did not end well for them,” lawyers for the Trump campaign wrote in a letter to the FEC dated Monday, in a reference to the American Revolution.
Trump’s legal team cited media reports that Labour party officials — including Starmer’s chief of staff Morgan McSweeney; his head of strategy Deborah Mattinson; and Matthew Doyle, Downing Street’s director of communications — had travelled to the US in recent months to advise the Harris campaign.
The complaint also cites a now deleted LinkedIn post from Sofia Patel, head of operations at the Labour party, who wrote that “nearly 100” current and former Labour party staff would be travelling to the US in the coming weeks to help elect Harris, the Democratic vice-president. “[We] will sort out your housing,” the post added.
Trump’s lawyers argue such support amounts to “contributions” from foreign actors, in violation of US campaign finance laws.
The Republican candidate’s lawyers requested an “immediate investigation” into what they described as “blatant foreign interference” in the election by both Labour and Harris’s campaign.
But Starmer pushed back late on Tuesday, telling journalists en route to the Commonwealth summit in Samoa that party members “have gone over [to the US] pretty much every election”, adding: “They’re doing it in their spare time, they’re doing it as volunteers.”
Emily Thornberry, Labour chair of the House of Commons foreign affairs committee, questioned the Labour activists’ efforts, telling the BBC: “I actually don’t think that British politicians going over to America and telling the Americans the way they should vote really helps.”
She added she would not like it if “an American politician came here and told me how to vote”.
The Trump campaign’s complaint comes with less than two weeks to go in one of the tightest US election races ever. Trump and Harris are locked in a dead heat in the polls, according to the Financial Times’ tracker.
“In two weeks, Americans will once again reject the oppression of big government that we rejected in 1776,” said Susie Wiles, co-chair of Trump’s campaign. Wiles said Harris’s campaign was “flailing” and “seeking foreign influence to boost its radical message”.
Billionaire Elon Musk, a major donor to Trump who is actively campaigning for him, also claimed last week that on his social media platform X that Labour activists’ work for Harris was “illegal”.
Nigel Farage, the UK Reform party leader and member of parliament who has campaigned for Trump this year, also weighed in on X: “This is direct election interference by the governing Labour Party, and particularly stupid if Trump wins. Who is paying for all of this?”
A spokesperson for the Harris campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Starmer and Trump met for the first time last month on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, where the men shared a two-hour dinner. Trump said ahead of the meeting that the prime minister was “very nice”.
On his way to the Commonwealth summit, Starmer told reporters he did not believe the row over Labour support for Harris risked jeopardising his ties to Trump, saying the two men had “established a good relationship” over dinner.
“We had a good, constructive discussion and, of course as prime minister of the United Kingdom I will work with whoever the American people return as their president in their elections, which are very close now,” he added.