UK-Trump row intensifies as Labour denies 'interfering' in US election

Trump team files complaint about Labour volunteers campaigning for Kamala Harris

A lawyer for Donald Trump has asked US election officials to investigate alleged meddling in the race for the White House by Britain's Labour Party. Bloomberg

Britain sought to defuse a row with Donald Trump on Wednesday after the US candidate accused the UK's ruling Labour Party of “blatant interference” in the race for the White House.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said party members assisting the Kamala Harris campaign were volunteering “in their spare time” as they had in previous elections. Mr Trump's team objected to a Labour staffer's LinkedIn post recruiting for activists in the battleground state of North Carolina.

The deleted post by Labour's Sofia Patel said almost 100 current and former staff were campaigning in North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Virginia for the Democratic candidate and offered to “sort housing” for new recruits. Mr Starmer said Labour supporters were staying with other volunteers.

Trump campaign lawyer Gary Lawkowski accused Labour of making “illegal foreign national contributions” in a six-page complaint to the US Federal Election Commission, which demanded an “immediate investigation into blatant foreign interference”.

“When representatives of the British government previously sought to go door-to-door in America, it did not end well for them,” he wrote, invoking the American War of Independence. “It appears that the Labour Party and the Harris for President campaign have forgotten the message.”

The Trump team also objected to reports of Labour strategists advising Ms Harris's team on replicating their election-winning campaign in Britain. It said the Harris campaign had been “generously borrowing language and themes from prominent Labour Party officials”, such as calling on voters to “turn the page”.

Mr Starmer's chief of staff and former campaign manager, Morgan McSweeney, attended the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August. Reports said Labour, rather than the Democratic Party, had paid for the trip.

Asked whether it was a mistake for Labour members to offer assistance to Ms Harris, Mr Starmer told reporters they were working on a voluntary basis. He said he did not expect the spat to strain transatlantic relations if Mr Trump wins back the White House on November 5.

“They're doing it in their spare time, they're doing it as volunteers, they're staying I think with other volunteers over there,” Mr Starmer said. “That’s what they’ve done in previous elections, is what they’re doing in this election. And that’s really straightforward.”

He said the Labour government would work with “whoever the American people return as their president”. Mr Starmer recently met the Republican candidate in New York and spoke to him after a failed assassination attempt in July.

“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 I was very grateful to him for making the time,” Mr Starmer said.

Labour's Environment Secretary Steve Reed said it was “perfectly normal” for people involved in politics to campaign for a sister party in another country. He said Americans had done the same in Britain but that “none of this has been organised or paid for by the Labour Party”.

During Mr Trump's term he was investigated by a special counsel over alleged links between Russia and his 2016 campaign. In 2019 he was impeached after leaning on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to probe possible links between Ukraine and Democrat Joe Biden.