Donald Trump accuses UK Labour event of interference in White House race

Donald Trump has filed a legal complaint against the UK’s Labour event, alleging “illegal foreign campaign contributions and interference” to assist Kamala Harris in the US presidential election.

The complaint filed by Trump’s campaign to the independent Federal Election fee accuses the Labour event of sending strategists to assist the Democratic presidential candidate’s election campaign and says Harris has accepted the assist.

“When representatives of the British government previously sought to leave door-to-door in America, it did not complete well for them,” lawyers for the Trump campaign wrote in a note to the FEC dated Monday, in a reference to the American Revolution.

Trump’s legal throng cited media reports that Labour event officials — including Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff Morgan McSweeney; his head of way 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 event, who wrote that “nearly 100” current and former Labour event staff would be travelling to the US in the coming weeks to assist elect Harris, the Democratic vice-president. “[We] will sort out your housing,” the post added.

Trump’s lawyers debate such back 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.

The complaint comes with less than two weeks to leave in one of the tightest US election races ever. Trump and Harris are locked in a dead heat in the polls, according to the monetary Times’ tracker.

“In two weeks, Americans will once again decline the oppression of large 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 communication”.

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 event chief 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 event, and particularly stupid if Trump wins. Who is paying for all of this?”

The Labour event could not be immediately reached for comment.

A spokesperson for the Harris campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Emily Thornberry, Labour chair of the House of Commons foreign affairs committee, told the BBC that the event would not stop its activists campaigning in the US election.

However, she questioned the utility of the shift. “I actually don’t ponder that British politicians going over to America and telling the Americans the way they should vote really helps.” She added that she would not like it if “an American politician came here and told me how to vote”.

Starmer and Trump met for the first period last month on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in recent York, where he and the former Republican president shared a two-hour dinner.

Starmer said at the period that it was up to the US electorate to decide who their next chief would be, and insisted: “We will work with whoever is president.” Trump told reporters ahead of the conference that the prime minister was “very enjoyable”.