Labour’s US election meddling is a total own goal

Donald Trump pictured during 2018. Labour Party assistance to his 2024 election opponent Kamala Harris has angered the former President and Republican candidate
Donald Trump pictured during 2018. Labour Party assistance to his 2024 election opponent Kamala Harris has angered the former President and Republican candidate - Susan Walsh/AP

With less than two weeks to go before the US presidential election, Sir Keir Starmer must be desperately hoping that Donald Trump does not emerge victorious in his bid to serve a second term in the White House.

Despite their very contrasting political outlooks, Starmer has made a bold attempt to build a constructive relationship with the Republican contender, a prudent move given that the latest US opinion polls indicate Trump is gaining ground on his Democratic rival, vice president Kamala Harris, in a number of key swing states.

It is an article of faith for any British prime minister that they develop a close political relationship with the occupant of the White House, irrespective of their political orientation.

Tony Blair seamlessly moved from being Democratic president Bill Clinton’s political soulmate – remember their enthusiasm for a political Third Way? – to become best buddies with George W Bush, his Republican successor. David Cameron tried to establish a similar relationship with the haughty Barack Obama, while more recent Conservative prime ministers, from Boris Johnson to Rishi Sunak, have done their best to maintain cordial ties with Joe Biden, even if their efforts have not always been reciprocated.

Starmer’s pre-emptive overture to have dinner with Trump during his recent jaunt to New York for the UN General Assembly last month was thus in the long-established British political tradition of maintaining a strong personal bond with US presidents.

It will be a matter of profound concern for Starmer, therefore, to find that his best-laid plans to befriend Trump ahead of the presidential poll on November 5 now lie in tatters thanks to the ill-considered effort by Labour Party members to campaign on behalf of Trump’s rival Harris.

It is not uncommon for political rivals on different sides of the Atlantic to pool their resources during election campaigns. Blair’s landslide victory in 1997 was bolstered by the support he received from the Clinton team, and former Labour leader Ed Miliband dragooned David Axelrod, Obama’s election guru, to rescue his doomed campaign in 2015.

The hundred or so Labour “volunteers” going to support Harris’s election campaign seem to have fundamentally misjudged the very different political climate that now prevails in the US. Any hint of foreign interference in America’s democratic process, no matter how well-intentioned, is viewed with the deepest suspicion.

American tolerance for foreign meddling in its electoral system has fallen precipitously ever since teams of Russian cyber hackers, aided by Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks network, torpedoed Hillary Clinton’s run for president in 2016.

Assange published a tranche of embarrassing emails obtained by Russian hackers relating to Clinton’s stint as secretary of state under Obama, a move that greatly facilitated Trump’s election victory that November.

Since then, American politicians of all persuasions have become understandably wary of any outside interference in their political affairs.

Indeed, Trump himself has been forced to fend off repeated claims about his alleged business ties with Russian entities, which have been the source of a great deal of negative speculation about the true nature of his relationship with Russian president Vladimir Putin.

In such circumstances, Labour Party apparatchiks might have thought twice before deciding to involve themselves in the Harris campaign, irrespective of whether, as Starmer insists, they are acting in a private capacity or are part of a concerted Labour effort to prevent Trump from securing a second term in the White House.

It just goes to show how out of touch many leading figures in Labour are with the political realities of the modern age that they did not stop to think how dramatically the political atmosphere in the US has changed.

A misjudgment of this magnitude could certainly have serious repercussions for Starmer’s administration if Trump does succeed in his bid for re-election.

A fractious relationship with the White House is the last thing Starmer needs. His desire to acquire reliable allies is all the more acute given the clownlike performance of his foreign secretary, David Lammy. He appears to think it a good idea to kowtow to China’s Communist masters at the same time that they are facilitating Russia’s war aims in Ukraine.

Despite Starmer’s insistence that the relationship with Trump is not in jeopardy, and that the involvement of Labour Party members volunteering for the Harris campaign was “really straightforward”, Trump’s reaction suggests otherwise. The Republican candidate has lodged a formal complaint to the Federal Election Commission accusing Labour supporters of “foreign interference” in the US election.

One of Trump’s defining characteristics is the ease with which he takes offence, so much so that even his closest supporters fear that, if re-elected, he will devote most of his second term as president to settling scores with adversaries.

Thanks to Labour’s ill-judged intervention in the Harris campaign, Starmer could now be among those who find themselves the target of Trump’s vengeful streak.