It’s easy to laugh at try-hard Labour staffers wanting to get involved in US politics by campaigning for Kamala Harris, but what happens in America matters to us all, says Will Cooling
We’ve all experienced the horror of returning from holiday to a massive backlog of work emails and urgent tasks, but few have experienced what dozens of Labour staffers and volunteers are going through. Their planned trip to America to help their ideological bedfellows defeat Donald Trump has managed to get both Kamala Harris’s Presidential Campaign and the Labour Party here in Britain, sued.
It’s worth being clear that this is both real and silly. There really are laws that prevent foreigners from getting too involved in American elections, with those outside the states not just unable to donate money to the campaigns, but unable to act as paid staff on a campaign. The workaround is that foreigners who come to help American candidates do it on a voluntary basis, either during a career break or annual leave. The pretext for the Trump campaign’s legal action was discussions on LinkedIn about accommodation for the volunteers being organised by Labour’s Head of Operations, Sofia Patel. The Trump campaign claims this implies illegal payment whereas Labour are adamant this simply referred to volunteers getting to stay with local Democrats. All precedent suggests the Labour Party have done nothing wrong.
It is easy to dismiss this as a bit of election season rabble rousing on behalf of the Trump campaign. Or indeed roll your eyes at Labour staffers and everyone in the British media who has jumped on the story for being more than a bit naff in their desperation to be part of the big story. But the reality is that what happens in America matters – and it’s perfectly natural that politically engaged people the world over would like to get involved.
Anglophobia
It is of course deeply concerning for Britain that Trump’s instinctive response was to openly attack our government. Not only does the lawsuit contain broadsides against key officials in Sir Keir Starmer’s government, it attacks the ideology of the Labour Party and mocks the way the Harris campaign has utilised some of his election slogans. It also indulges in some unusually blatant Anglophobia, comparing the election volunteers to the King George III’s troops in their war of independence. It certainly suggests that for all Starmer and David Lammy’s attempts to build bridges, Trump will think nothing of throwing them and the rest of Britain overboard, for partisan advantage.
For all Starmer and David Lammy’s attempts to build bridges, Trump will think nothing of throwing them and the rest of Britain overboard, for partisan advantage
But beyond the American Presidency’s impact on Britain, it’s worth thinking about our American friends and family whose lives could be profoundly altered for the worse by a second Trump Presidency. Many of us belong to communities or believe in causes that depend on American liberalism for global leadership – leadership that has been in short supply as it’s been forced on the defensive by MAGA. We all rely on the US military to keep the peace and can see the inhumanity that is unleashed when it is unable or unwilling to do so. Yes, it is the American people’s decision who they should have as President, but it is not they alone that live with the consequences of that decision. It is empowering the worst of their politics to indulge the idea that foreigners cannot offer limited support to their ideological allies, and risks isolating the best.
So laugh at the try-hard Labour staffers and activists as they board their flights to the States, if you really must. But they’re the ones who will get to tell their grandkids that they did their bit to try to stop the election of a man condemned by his own former chief of staff as a fascist. What did you do?
Will Cooling writes about politics and pop culture at It Could be Said Substack