UK PM says ties with Trump ‘good’ after US election ‘interference’ claims

Keir Starmer bats away accusations that Labour volunteers backing Kamala Harris made ‘illegal’ foreign contributions.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has responded directly to allegations from Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s team that Labour Party officials sought to interfere in the upcoming US election.

Starmer said he had “a good relationship” with Trump on Wednesday, a day after the former US president’s campaign accused the Labour Party of “blatant foreign interference” after volunteers travelled to the United States to help campaign for Democratic candidate Kamala Harris.

En route to a Commonwealth leaders’ meeting on the Pacific island of Samoa, Starmer told reporters that his party had done nothing wrong and that the volunteers had paid for themselves.

Reporting from London, Al Jazeera’s Jonah Hull said that Starmer and his ministers had “responded stridently” to the “pretty sensational” allegations.

“They are not so much refuting the basic facts as denying that they did anything wrong,” he said.

Trump’s team filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission in Washington, DC, calling for an investigation into what it termed “illegal foreign national contributions” from Labour to the Harris campaign.

The filing cited media reports that Labour officials, including the prime minister’s new chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, travelled to the US to advise the Harris campaign in key swing states.

According to US rules, foreigners can volunteer on election campaigns but cannot make financial contributions.

Trump’s team also submitted a now-deleted LinkedIn post by Labour Director of Operations Sofia Patel calling for volunteers to travel to the state of North Carolina, saying “We will sort out your housing”.

Al Jazeera’s Hull said Patel’s statement would come under particular scrutiny.

“The Labour party has volunteers, who have gone over pretty much every election,” he said. “They’re doing it in their spare time, they’re doing it as volunteers,” Starmer said.

“That’s what they’ve done in previous elections, that’s what they’re doing in this election and that’s really straightforward.”

He also denied suggestions that the row could damage relations with Britain’s most important ally should Trump beat Harris in November and secure a return to the White House.

Starmer met the former president last month for a two-hour dinner at his Trump Tower residence in New York.

“My purpose in doing that was to make sure that between the two of us, we established a good relationship, which we did, and I was very grateful to him for making the time.”