UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has dismissed claims by Donald Trump's team accusing his Labour Party of "blatant foreign interference" in the US election, stating that it is customary for party volunteers to engage in campaigning. Starmer also emphasized that he maintains "a good relationship" with Trump, having recently met with him for discussions. The former president's legal team lodged a complaint with the US Federal Election Commission, alleging that the "British Labour Party made, and the (Kamala) Harris campaign accepted, illegal foreign national contributions." The complaint referenced media reports indicating that Labour officials, including the prime minister's new chief of staff Morgan McSweeney, traveled to the United States to provide advice to the Harris campaign. Additionally, Trump's team pointed to a now-deleted LinkedIn post by Labour director of operations Sofia Patel, which called for volunteers to travel to North Carolina, promising to arrange their housing. Foreign nationals are permitted to volunteer in US elections but are not allowed to receive compensation. Starmer, speaking to media during a visit to a Commonwealth meeting in Samoa, asserted that his party had committed no wrongdoing, and that the volunteers had funded their own trips. "The Labour party has volunteers, who have gone over pretty much every election," he explained. "They're doing it in their spare time, they're doing it as volunteers, they're staying, I think, with other volunteers over there." He also refuted the notion that such actions could harm relations with the UK's most significant ally if Trump were to defeat Harris and return to the White House. Starmer noted that he had "established a good relationship" with the former president, having recently shared a two-hour dinner with him at Trump Tower in New York. The situation escalated further when Elon Musk, a Trump supporter, posted on his X platform that "this is war" after leaked documents from the Center for Countering Digital Hate suggested that one of its goals was to "kill Musk's Twitter," X's former name. The campaign group and think-tank is led by a former Labour adviser, and McSweeney is a former director.
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