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Last week, when Sofia Patel, the Labour Party head of operations, said in a post that she was organising about 100 current and former party officials to campaign across swing states during the last breaths of this US presidential election, it could hardly be fathomed that at least not one legal complaint would be filed from Florida.
The Trump presidential campaign later filed a formal complaint with the Federal Election Commission: "When representatives of the British government previously sought to go door-to-door in America, it did not end well for them.
"Great Britain," you may recall, was also known as "the enemy" in the 18th-century colonies, which were still dependent territories. Last week, he said, marked the anniversary of the great victory at Yorktown–243 years after it happened!
However bombastic it is, the fact of a Labour Party lauded for its outreach to Trump et al. being formally accused of "blatant foreign interference" in support of his opponent, Kamala Harris, ought not be regarded as trivial.
So what's behind all this? However, the problem is that Foreign volunteers need to be quite right in the eyes of FEC rule books. "It was indeed a volunteer role," says Smith — noting that his brother did not get paid for standing out for Democratic save-Paraguay efforts (which side-note sounds like something from The Onion).
Well that is indeed what Labour claim these operators were: VOLUNTEERS. Although Patel's LinkedIn post advised prospective campaign workers that they would be housed, officials say she needed to be more precise with her language.
Speaking to reporters last night, Sir Keir Starmer said that Labour staff travelling to the US were "doing it as volunteers" for party members and supporters stateside.
'Private citizens'
What Patel meant when she told people they could secure 10 spots in North Carolina needs to be clarified.
S, did that mean travel expenses to get there were paid for? Labour is adamant that they did not foot the bill even if they did. However, in terms of diplomacy, the more damaging charge involves a formal institution (the Labour Party) rallying to support another party's machinery.
This is being denied, too. Labour sources say that, in her spare time, Ms Patel was getting party officials to fly out to the US.
As environment secretary Steve Reed said this morning: "It's a matter for members of the public how they spend their time and money."
iStock/Getty Of course, it is no surprise that politics people on the left, in some way or other, are always back for their guy to win, just as at least one special adviser who recently worked for a Conservative minister was campaigning this month in swing state America…for Trump.
British obsession
There is one more part of this as well. But American politics, like so much else about the US, has a reciprocal blindspot: it barely acknowledges that Britain exists.
Every four years, British politicos stream across the Atlantic for a helping double dose of campaigning on a much grander scale.
There are numerous examples. It comes a week after Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader and an MP only days again, addressed the Republican convention – as did Liz Truss, who was out of No 10 barely two weeks.
Before becoming an MP, the former Conservative cabinet minister Penny Mordaunt worked for George W Bush. Another ex-Conservative MP, Liam Fox, had links with senior figures in the Republicans for some time.
Not that the parties on either side of the Atlantic always map cleanly.
But it took the sight of Sir Simon Burns — a former Conservative MP who represented Chelmsford, helping with Joe Biden canvassing for his party's mooted presidential primary in New Hampshire — to get me thinking.
Sir Robert Buckland, who was defeated as a Conservative at the general election and has been in America for several weeks backing Harris.
Awkward spot
That is true, but it was a harrowing situation for the Labour administration two weeks to the day before Starmer could pick up the phone and call President-Elect Trump.
Labour politicians have spent plenty of time trying to connect with Trump and his allies while in opposition and then in government.
The foreign secretary, David Lammy, apparently hung out with JD Vance, who Trump's running mate eventually became an Ohio senator.
Starmer has already spoken to Trump by telephone following the botched assassination attempt on his life last July; a source says that diplomats were thrilled at how quickly the return conversation came together, and they recently broke bread for their first meeting over dinner at The Sanctuary in New York.
Labour party higher-ups say this legal wrangle is not so much a rebuke of that style as it seems to the outside world, but it is pure politicking from an eager Trump campaign looking for grist in those waning days.
They need to be correct.
If they are mistaken, this might not just be a temporary awkwardness but a disagreement which imperils the most significant diplomatic relationship any British prime minister has.
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