Back in August, during my interview with Sadiq Khan, I asked him about the upcoming US presidential election. He explicitly backed Kamala Harris, adding, “It’s no secret many Labour Party members go and volunteer for the Democrats during presidential elections. We shouldn’t pretend otherwise. Many of my staffers helped all three: Obama, Clinton and Biden.”
As the US election enters its final fortnight, Labour staff have duly travelled to campaign for Harris. A now-deleted LinkedIn post by Sofia Patel, the party’s head of operations, spoke of “nearly 100 Labour Party staff (current and former) going to the US” with ten remaining places (“we will sort your housing”, she promised). This act has prompted an extraordinary row with the Trump campaign. In a letter to the US Federal Election Commission, the former president’s team has accused Labour of “illegal foreign national contributions” (noting that “when representatives of the British government previously sought to go door-to-door in America, it did not end well for them”).
Labour rejects this charge, insisting that staff travelled in a personal capacity in their own time and funded themselves (with their accommodation arranged by volunteers campaigning for the Democrats).
On the plane to the Commonwealth summit in Samoa, Keir Starmer has sought to defuse the row, emphasising that volunteers “have gone over pretty much every election” (one Yvette Cooper worked on Bill Clinton’s campaign in 1992). That’s one reason complaints of “foreign interference” in US politics – from both left and right – are nothing new.
But there are particular reasons why this row is an unambiguous headache for Starmer. In opposition, mindful that he was likely to become prime minister, he remained studiously neutral over the US election – despite Labour’s historical links with the Democrats.
This approach has been carried into government (Khan, by contrast, declared at his media drinks at City Hall this week that he would be “making my voice heard to make sure Donald Trump doesn’t win on 5 November”).
Starmer and David Lammy have made the maintenance of the “special relationship” with the US central to their foreign policy. This is not least because Brexit – which they accept as a settled reality – places clear limits on ties to Europe.
Mindful of this, the party has sought to build bridges with Trump and his team (the current favourite to win the election). Until now, this mission had gone better than some anticipated. Last month, Starmer had a two-hour dinner with Trump in New York and was accompanied by Lammy (whose excoriating tweets on the former president appeared not to have thwarted relations).
“I actually think he’s very nice,” Trump said of Starmer before what was to be their first meeting. “He ran a great race, he did very well, it’s very early, he’s very popular.” It was one of the more favourable reviews of Starmer’s opening months as Prime Minister.
Lammy, meanwhile, has met Republicans including Trump’s vice-presidential nominee, JD Vance (the Foreign Secretary pointed to their Christianity and working-class backgrounds as “common ground”), former secretary of state Mike Pompeo and former national security adviser Robert O’Brien.
But this patient diplomacy is now under threat. Will Trump appreciate the fine distinction that Labour draws between individual and party support? Perhaps not. For this reason, among many others, Labour will be hoping for a Harris victory – whatever it says in public.
This piece first appeared in the Morning Call newsletter; receive it every morning by subscribing on Substack here
