Does Donald Trump have a case? Perhaps he has a political case, especially given the Democrats’ hyperventilation about foreign interference by Russia in 2016 and again earlier this year. And, as Politico concedes this afternoon, Keir Starmer’s party may have crossed a legal line this time as well.
The Labour Party in the UK facilitates its activists in traveling to the US to assist Democrats on a fairly routine basis, as it turns out. Normally, their involvement remains limited to helping to make connections for volunteers with Americans willing to assist. This time, the Trump campaign alleges, it amounts to in-kind contributions from foreign sources, forbidden by American election law, organized by Labour’s Head of Operations Sofia Patel:
The Washington Post reports, “[s]trategists linked to Britain’s Labour Party have been offering advice to Kamala Harris about how to earn back disaffected voters and run a winning campaign from the center left.”2 The Telegraph adds more detail to these statements, reporting “Morgan McSweeney, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, and Matthew Doyle, director of communications, attended the convention in Chicago and met with Ms Harris’ campaign team” and “Deborah Mattinson, Sir Keir’s director of strategy, also went to Washington in September to brief Ms Harris’ presidential campaign on Labour’s election-winning approach.”3
In the wake of these strategic meetings, the Harris campaign has been following in the footsteps of then-Senator Joseph Biden by generously borrowing language and themes from prominent Labour Party officials[.]
That’s when Patel made it clear that the Labour Party as an organization planned to organize on behalf of Harris. Patel posted this on her LinkedIn account:
It’s the “10 spots available” that makes this look very much like an illegal in-kind contribution, as the Dhillon Law Group told the FEC:
Ms. Patel also states that she “ha[s] 10 spots available.” The limited number of “spots” supports a reasonable inference that the Labour Party is financially supporting this effort. After all, if individuals were being asked to volunteer on their own and sort out their own housing, there would be no reason to cap the number of remaining “spots.” The 10 spot number suggests scarcity, which in turn suggests an expenditure of resources.
Press reports further support a reasonable inference that the Harris campaign is aware of these efforts, and thus has accepted a prohibited foreign national contribution. As the Washington Post story indicates, there are close ties between the Harris campaign and the Labour Party. It strains credulity that the Labour Party would deploy 100 people to assist the Harris campaign without the campaign’s knowledge.
Politico’s team acknowledges that Trump may have a legit gripe in this case. And Labour’s leadership worry that they may have damaged a key relationship to the US by getting out over their skis:
True, it’s not unusual for Labour staffers to volunteer their time individually during a U.S. election — but Trump’s team argues Patel’s offer to “sort your housing” amounts to a broader, foreign national contribution for the Harris campaign — which is indeed prohibited. …
Labour scrambled into reverse ferret mode after Patel’s post imploded on MAGA social media over the weekend and caused frustration on both sides of the Atlantic. The top brass shut down the central coordination of campaigners from within Labour HQ.
“She’s getting a ton of blowback on this,” one person familiar with the initial coordination said about Patel. “Particularly from colleagues who think she acted recklessly.”
Blowback certainly appears on the menu in the future, too. Starmer insists that he has a good relationship with Trump, but that may not last long. Labour and Starmer are also coordinating with the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), which has as one goal the destruction of Twitter/X while Elon Musk owns it.
Matt Taibbi has written extensively about CCDH and its global censorship campaign, along with its close ties to Starmer and Labour. Taibbi reached out to the Trump campaign today about those concerns, and got exactly the response he desired. Unsurprisingly, the campaign pledged that CCDH and Labour would get a whole lotta scrutiny if Trump manages to beat Starmer and Harris:
The Center for Countering Digital Hate will be “investigated from all angles,” a source from the campaign of Donald Trump says, in response to documents obtained by the Disinformation Chronicle in conjunction with Racket showing “Kill Musk’s Twitter” on CCDH’s monthly agenda notes.
The Trump campaign is furious that a group with ties to the new government of Prime Minister Keir Starmer is targeting its political allies while parent organization Labour Together openly advises Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. There’s frustration in Trump’s camp after years of resultless probes over alleged foreign assistance.
“Everything is going to be investigated,” the spokesperson said. “This will be at the top of the list.”
Apart from that, one has to wonder why Democrats facilitate this level of foreign interference in US elections — even if it remains technically legal. They have spent eight years screaming about election interference, which is one issue. But why don’t Democrats make their own arguments and find their own organizers? We have a country of 330 million people, after all. If their agenda is as popular as they claim, why do they need to import workers to help sell it?
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