UK Labour Party faces FEC complaint over US election support

London: It is not unusual for members or supporters of either the Conservative Party or the Labour Party to travel to the US to support their equivalent in a presidential election; in fact the UK has an unsuccessful history of interference when in 1992 John Major attempted to help his buddy George Bush defeat Bill Clinton, he failed and had to write a letter of apology. This week following a post on LinkedIn from Sofia Patel, Head of Operations at the Labour Party, intending to muster Democrat support for a campaign in the swing state of North Carolina, Patel offered 10 available travel spots to Labour supporters and to arrange their accommodation. This prompted the Trump-Vance Campaign’s, Gary M. Lawkowski Trump Counsel from Florida, to file a Federal Election Commission (FEC) complaint against “the Labour Party of the UK and Kamala Harris for President for Making and Accepting Illegal Foreign National Contributions”. The six page letter alleges that at the DNC in August Morgan McSweeney, Matthew Doyle and Deborah Mattinson, three senior officials in the Starmer team, all advised VP Kamala Harris’ campaign about their election winning strategy. Sir Keir Starmer dined with Donald Trump in September but he did not meet Ms Harris, Starmer says Trump and he had a good meeting and he believes in good personal relations. It has been multilaterally agreed that it was mistake for a government staffer to post this campaign opportunity on her social media. The FEC has clear rules about foreign national’s participation in US elections that can be found here Foreign nationals | FEC.
Former Tory Justice Secretary Robert Buckland has also endorsed Harris following his visit to US in September. However, many Tory MPs are thought to anonymously support Trump but fear reprisals if they were to declare; former MPs such as Liz Truss, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Jake Berry are not so shy.
UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy has previously not been polite about Donald Trump and said in 2019 “It makes me emotional because my six-year-old can look at Kamala Harris and dream dreams that weren’t possible before”. Additionally the Commonwealth situation about the transatlantic slave trade has become awkward for Starmer at CHOGM in Samoa, as Lammy is leading the movement for economic colonial reparations, specifically to the Caribbean nations; the Conservative MP Andrew Rosindell claims Starmer invited the reparation demands by appointing Lammy.
The UK is on tenterhooks in anticipation of Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ budget, Reeves plans to re-write fiscal rules in this week’s budget to allow an increase in borrowing for public investment by up to £50bn, so far this has only been announced to the IMF and has not been announced in the UK parliament. Folks are concerned that Reeves will increase inheritance tax and/or cap the Business Property Relief, introduced in 1976 to help family-owned businesses continue trading after a death without needing to sell shares or the whole business to pay the inheritance tax owed. Also the Agricultural Property Relief which is land or pasture that is used to grow crops or to rear animals, it means folks can pass on some agricultural property free of Inheritance Tax, either during their lifetime or as part of their will. Also in jeopardy are capital gains tax, corporation tax, national insurance contributions for employers and a freeze to the income tax bracket; all of which deceptively make “working people” worse off. Some members of the Labour cabinet are rebelling fearing 20% cuts to their departmental budgets, will the rebels have the courage to stand up for their budgets faced with the consequences paid by seven Labour MPs, when in July they had the whip suspended for 6 months after voting against the government about scrapping the two-child benefit cap.
Meanwhile Nigel Farage, Leader of Reform UK, has written a letter to the 1352 Conservative County-Councillors who are facing re-election in 2025, inviting them to defect to ReformUK before the ReformUK Party select their candidates around the country. At the time of writing 24 hours after the letter, 3 Councillors have defected.
Just a week from November 2nd when the Conservative Members vote is revealed it is Kemi Badenoch in poll position for Leader of the Opposition. However John Curtice, UK’spolling guru, believes that it is neither Kemi Badenoch nor Robert Jenrick who are capable of winning back Conservative voters to lead the party to victory at the next general election.