The United Kingdom’s governing Labour Party is on shaky legal grounds over a plan to send 100 members to work on behalf of Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign.
Reports emerged on Thursday that a top Labour Party official is helping to arrange for roughly 100 current and former Labour staffers to canvass for Harris in key battleground states.
Even though there does not appear to be involvement from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer or members of his government, an election lawyer told the Telegraph that the volunteers ran the risk of breaking election laws in the United States, opening the Harris campaign to sanctioning.
Under federal law, the travel expenses of a volunteer are considered a donation if they exceed $1,000. A plane ticket from London to Washington, D.C., presently hovers around $500 to $1,000, with additional fees to travel to battleground states such as Nevada. Staffers were reportedly told to pay for their own flights and car hire, while lodging would be provided by Democratic operatives.
Rental cars are particularly expensive — a car rented in Nevada could cost well over $360 for just three days when taking into account additional fees and insurance.
“The cost of getting here by air, if it is less than $1,000 it would be okay, but anything more than that it becomes very problematic in my opinion,” Lawrence Otter, a constitutional and electoral law expert, told the Telegraph.
He said the Harris campaign could be sanctioned, probably via a “substantial” fine, if the costs of travel exceed that amount.
U.S. federal election law holds that foreign citizens can campaign in the country if the travel costs are under $1,000, though they cannot be paid and can’t have any decision-making influence on party operatives.
The news was first revealed after Sofia Patel, Labour’s head of operations, put up a post on LinkedIn saying she had about 100 current and former Labour staffers traveling to battleground states to volunteer on the Harris campaign, with 10 spots available.
“We will sort out your housing,” she said.
The LinkedIn post has since been taken down, and Patel’s page displays a 404 error message when reached.
The Washington Examiner reached out to Patel and the Labour Party for comment. The U.K. Embassy declined to comment and directed inquiries to the Labour Party press office.
Nigel Farage, a member of Parliament with the Reform U.K. party and a close ally of former President Donald Trump, decried the move.
“This is direct election interference by the governing Labour Party, and particularly stupid if Trump wins,” he said on Friday. “Who is paying for all of this?”
Trump’s allies in the U.S. were particularly incensed. Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the action was “illegal.”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) wrote on X: “Foreign nationals are not allowed to be involved in anyway in U.S. elections. Please go back to the UK and fix your own mass immigration problems that are ruining your country.”
The scheme isn’t the first time Labour figures have involved themselves in the 2024 election on the side of Harris.
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In September, Deborah Mattinson, a pollster and one of Starmer’s top advisers, traveled to Washington to brief the campaign on Labour’s successful strategy in the past election. The move was one of the first major interactions between the Harris campaign and a foreign political operation.
The strategy that she related to Harris was developed with the help of the Progressive Policy Institute, where former Starmer policy director Claire Ainsley works.