The campaign of Republican US Presidential candidate Donald Trump filed a formal complaint on Monday (October 21), accusing the ruling UK Labour Party of “blatant foreign interference”. It referred to party volunteers coming to the US to campaign for Vice-President and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris for the Presidential elections. UK Prime Minister and Labour leader Keir Starmer responded that some party workers did join the campaign, but they did so in their personal capacity and paid for their expenses. Labour said it was “common practice for campaigners of all political persuasions from around the world to volunteer in U.S. elections.” Foreign interference, especially from Russia, has been a contentious issue in US elections. However, the United Kingdom had not been named in such concerns. Here is what to know. What is the complaint against the Labour Party? The complaint was made to the US Federal Election Commission. It said the Trump campaign wanted an “immediate investigation into… apparent illegal foreign national contributions made by the Labour Party of the United Kingdom and accepted by Harris for President, the principal campaign committee of Vice President Kamala Harris.” It also referred to their history, stating, “This past week marked the 243 anniversary of the surrender of British forces at the Battle of Yorktown, a military victory that ensured that the United States would be politically independent of Great Britian. It appears that the Labour Party and the Harris for President campaign have forgotten the message.” The campaign also mentioned a now-deleted LinkedIn post from Sofia Patel, the head of operations for the Labour Party. She wrote, “I have nearly 100 Labour Party staff (current and former) going to the US in the next few weeks… I have 10 spots available for anyone available to head to the battleground state of North Carolina - we will sort your housing…” They said this constituted material support from the Labour Party for Harris’ campaign. The complaint also mentioned meetings between Labour and advisers to Harris. In an interview last month, Jonathan Ashworth, a former Labour member of Parliament, said that he and other officials had spoken with Harris officials and other Democrats at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. According to The New York Times, he reportedly warned them not to be complacent about the anger among pro-Palestinian voters over the Biden administration’s stance on the war in the Gaza Strip, citing their own experience in this year's UK general elections. What US laws say on foreign contributions to elections The complaint referenced various court rulings and electoral rules in the US that prohibit foreign nationals from “directly or indirectly” making “a contribution or donation of money or other thing of value, or to make an express or implied promise to make a contribution or donation, in connection with a Federal, State, or local election”. However, foreign nationals can participate in the electoral process by volunteering — without receiving payments. According to the Trump campaign, Patel’s post “supports a reasonable inference that the Labour Party will finance at least travel and facilitate room and board.” The complaint also referenced an earlier case where the Australian Labour Party was fined over its volunteers campaigning for Bernie Sanders in the 2016 US elections. The FEC fined the party in 2018 for paying for the flights and associated costs of the volunteers. While they paid a $14,500 fine to “settle” the matter, a senior Labor source told Guardian Australia, “All parties send observers to overseas elections. It has happened for decades. This is a new and very strict interpretation. We don’t believe any rules were broken.” The FEC, however, found that those efforts violated a prohibition on foreign contributions. UK presence in US elections Labour activists have long travelled to the United States during presidential campaigns. Natalie Fleet, a newly elected Labour member of Parliament, recalled canvassing for Hillary Clinton as a young volunteer in Ohio in 2016, The NYT reported. It also noted how in 2013, Jim Messina, a Democratic consultant and campaign manager for President Barack Obama, signed on as a consultant to Britain’s Conservative Party. Notably, UK PM Keir Starmer had told Time Magazine this year, “We’ve got a lot to learn internationally as a Labour Party, so we study intensely the U.S. and, particularly, the journey of Biden into office, because [the Democrats are] our sister party.” Some have also argued that given these longstanding connections, the recent issue has been made to seem disproportionately important. Russian interference in US elections, which Trump's campaign has not raised as a major concern, has been contrasted against the issue. Christopher Phelps, lecturer in the American and Canadian Studies Department at the University of Nottingham, UK, told Al Jazeera that the case could be seen as a violation of US law. However, he noted that the Labour Party’s intervention was “low-level compared with Russian interference, widely believed to be in support of Trump’s campaign.” He added that the Labour move may end up benefitting the Republican camp. “It’s very convenient now for Trump to be able to say: look at this foreign interference on behalf of the Harris campaign in order to offset the suspicions that are aroused by the Russian attempt to support his campaign,” Phelps said.
