Why
Donald Trump went to war with UK’s Keir Starmer — over a LinkedIn post
A networking
post triggered a chain of events that risks damaging a delicate relationship.
October 24,
2024 4:01 am CET
By Emilio
Casalicchio
WASHINGTON,
DC — U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer had spent the summer making cautious
overtures to woo Donald Trump. Then a Labour staffer threw a diplomatic grenade
onto LinkedIn.
It was less
than a month ago that Starmer bagged not just a meeting with the Republican
presidential candidate, but also a dinner at Trump Tower that stretched into
the night.
British
government officials were ecstatic at the outcome of the encounter, which took
place during Starmer’s visit to New York for a global summit and saw the
unpredictable ex-president praise the newish British PM. Their tête-à-tête
ended up lasting two hours, with joyful aides said to have called the airport
to push back the departure time of Starmer’s waiting plane as it readied to
return home.
The
successful head-to-head was a coup for a left-wing prime minister desperate to
get into the good graces of the hard-right possible returnee to the White
House. The reserved former human rights barrister and prosecutor from Britain
could hardly be more different from the bombastic and controversial American
businessman.
But in a
land where the “special relationship” with the U.S. is a defining one, even the
staunchest socialist in the new government understands the need to keep Trump
onside.
All that
hard work risks being undone, however, after a Labour aide took to the business
networking site LinkedIn with a callout for staffers to help campaign for
Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
“I have
nearly 100 Labour Party staff (current and former) going to the U.S. in the
next few weeks heading to North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Virginia,”
Labour Head of Operations Sofia Patel wrote. “I have 10 spots available for
anyone available to head to the battleground state of North Carolina — we will
sort your housing.”
“We will
sort your housing”
Patel had no
reason to think she was about to cause a diplomatic incident. She had shared
similar posts on LinkedIn in the preceding months. “I’m planning a trip for
Labour Party staff to help our friends across the pond elect their first female
president (second time lucky!),” she wrote in August. “Let’s show the Democrats
how to win elections!”
But this
time her actions triggered a chain of events that risks damaging the delicate
relationship Starmer and his team have spent months forging with the possible
future leader of the free world.
An X
(formerly Twitter) account named “max” with a paid-for blue tick and a profile
photo of the late French writer Albert Camus posted a screenshot of the Patel
post, after a Labour staffer friend flagged it to the account owner 14 hours
after it went live. Max wrote, without providing proof, that those campaigning
were “funded by the Labour Party.”
Then the
Politics UK account — which shares political headlines with its more than
300,000-strong following, prompting instant viral boosts — picked it up.
The post
bounced around political Twitter, shared via pro-Trump accounts with
ever-larger followings. Then things really got out of control.
X owner and
Trump supporter Elon Musk shared one of the screenshots with a simple comment:
“This is illegal.” Whether he was right was irrelevant: The grenade exploded.
Mainstream
news organizations began running headlines as Republicans weighed in to
criticize Labour. Pro-Trump House Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene said
“foreign nationals are not allowed to be involved in any way in U.S.
elections,” while Senator Tom Cotton said the British invasion of campaigners
was “yet another reason” to vote for Trump.
Labour
swiftly scrambled into furious reverse ferret mode. Top brass shut down the
central coordination of campaigners — even though the plans appeared to fall
within U.S. electoral rules on foreign volunteer spending, since the activists
were funding their own expenses. Patel deleted all her previous LinkedIn posts
about the plan. Aides tried to play down the row in conversations with
reporters.
But it was
too late. One state Democrat group canceled its plans to host Labour activists.
Whatever the rights and wrongs, the outrage had become toxic; it was now simply
too damaging to have Brits knocking on voters’ doors.
There the
matter may have remained, had the former president himself not weighed in.
Courting
attention
Just as the
row appeared to have died down, on Monday night the Trump campaign revealed its
legal team had filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission watchdog.
It alleged
that the Labour actions amounted to “foreign interference” and were therefore a
breach of campaign funding rules. The crux of the argument rested on the
LinkedIn post, and whether it could be interpreted as implying Labour was
pumping significant funds into the attempts to get Harris elected.
Electoral
rules in the U.S. stipulate that overseas volunteers can help out as long as
they fund their own expenses and do not make campaign decisions. There is a
$1,000 dollar limit on travel bills, but costs for food and board are uncapped.
U.S. locals can put overseas volunteers up in their homes — as long as those
homes aren’t rentals.
In its first
on-the-record statement, Labour insisted staffers heading to the U.S. were
doing so within the rules. “Where Labour activists take part, they do so at
their own expense, in accordance with the laws and rules,” the statement said.
But Republicans were reluctant to take them at their word.
“In these
kinds of investigations it’s the details that matter,” said Jason Torchinsky, a
Republican finance lawyer. “Labour can claim the campaigners are funding
themselves, but the clear central coordination of this and some of the wording
on LinkedIn raises questions. There is certainly enough smoke here that it’s
worth checking whether there’s a fire.”
Some
observers argued the Republican response was just Trump being Trump —
weaponizing an issue to create a political row.
“This
complaint against the Harris campaign by the Trump campaign seems calculated to
generate headlines and campaign talking points for candidate Trump and has
little to do with the legal merits of the complaint,” said Ciara
Torres-Spelliscy, a professor in electoral law at Stetson University, Florida.
She added
that the Federal Election Commission was “notorious for not enforcing campaign
finance laws” — another reason little is expected to come of the complaint. The
FEC’s own timetabling suggests it won’t respond before the election is over.
Grenade
blowback
Regardless
of the merits of the legal complaint, internal fire began to turn on Patel for
the ambiguous wording of her LinkedIn posts.
“She’s
getting a ton of blowback on this,” said one person familiar with the initial
coordination of Labour campaigners, “particularly from colleagues who think she
acted recklessly. Labour is distancing themselves from her, not only from her
actions but from her professionally.”
Some,
however, jumped to the defense of an aide who had just wanted to help, and who
is unable to defend herself in public.
“This has
been blown way out of proportion and it’s unfair for the staffer — who has
always stayed behind the scenes — to be thrown into [the] international
spotlight for what is clearly an innocuous project,” said Tara Jane O’Reilly, a
former Labour aide, on Twitter. “I hope the higher-ups at Labour are supporting
her.”
Labour
allies in Washington agreed the furor was a storm in a teacup — and argued that
despite causing waves in the U.K., the row was having little impact in the U.S.
“In a
multibillion dollar election in the United States, the question around a
handful of volunteers coming over from the U.K. is a sideshow of a sideshow,”
said Josh Freed, a senior vice president at the center-left think tank Third
Way in D.C.
He noted
that volunteer exchanges happen each election between Labour and the Democrats,
as well as between the U.K. Conservatives and Republicans. Even in the U.K.
general election last summer, a Cabinet minister offered to coordinate a team
of Republicans to help the Tories campaign.
Even very
senior right-wingers have been known to assist each other across the pond.
In February,
former Prime Minister Liz Truss appeared at the right-wing CPAC conference,
while Reform UK leader Nigel Farage joined Trump at his campaign rallies in
2016 and 2020. Both Farage and former Tory PM Boris Johnson attended the most
recent Republican National Convention. Conservatives argued it was different
for Labour now it’s in government.
Never relax
Freed
admitted, however, that Labour had been clumsy in how its scheme became
publicized — allowing Trump and his
supporters to make hay. The free hit put a downer on long-standing work between
Labour and the Democrats to coordinate and bolster the center left.
“There’s a
general lesson in politics that everything that happens digitally happens in
public and people need to be very careful and explicit and deliberate about
what they are saying,” he said. “Everything is now viewed and interpreted
through a partisan lens.”
The unnamed
person quoted above agreed a long-standing, hitherto uncontroversial campaign
scheme had been weaponized for Trump’s political purposes — using Starmer and
the U.K. government as collateral. “They are trying to turn the whole foreign
interference story on its head,” the person said about the MAGA camp.
The concern
for Starmer is whether his delicate attempts to get Trump on side have been
rendered pointless, or whether the damage can be repaired.
Farage, who
is influential in the Trump camp, said Starmer had “insulted the incoming Trump
administration,” while Richard Grennell, tipped in Washington as a possible
Trump pick for secretary of state, criticized Labour on BBC television.
Starmer
himself was forced to insist the row would not jeopardize his relationship with
Trump, if the Republican candidate does indeed return to the White House.
“I spent
time in New York with President Trump, had dinner with him and my purpose in
doing that was to make sure that between the two of us we established a good
relationship, which we did,” he told reporters.
“We had a
good, constructive discussion and, of course, as prime minister of the United
Kingdom I will work with whoever the American people return as their
president.”
John
Johnston contributed reporting to this article.
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