Only Keir Starmer’s Labour Government could kill off the UK’s most trusted friendship with a LinkedIn post.
Read that again.
You probably thought you were dreaming the first time. But you’re not. LinkedIn has always been an infuriating, egoistical, dog-eat-dog world for people like me scrapping to plug their career at every opportunity. Annoying, yes – but harmless. But now, Labour’s LinkedIn carelessness might just have shredded the UK-US special relationship that won World War II.
It all began when Sofia Patel, Head of Operations at the Labour Party, advertised ten remaining spots out of ‘nearly 100 Labour Party Staff’ volunteering to campaign in US battleground states. The pathetically unprofessional correspondence email ‘labourforkamala@gmail.com’ would be enough to put me off. But it was five other words that caught Republican candidate Donald Trump’s eye: ‘we will sort your housing’.
That’s the motherlode. US Federal Election Commission (FEC) rules strictly stipulate that foreign volunteers cannot spend more than $1,000 campaigning for candidates. But I’ve just looked up a return flight for one person from London to North Carolina, one of Labour’s target states, and it’s at least £1,439. Add housing into the mix, and Labour have created their own transatlantic £22 billion black hole.
And so, Trump has filed an official complaint with the FEC, citing Labour’s “blatant foreign interference”.
It’s no secret that I don’t like Trump very much. Quite simply, I don’t believe the US President should be a convicted criminal. But, for once, the man’s got a point.
Of course, it’s a beautiful irony that Trump should be losing his rag over a thousand dollars, when the 2020 Presidential Campaign cost over $14 billion – the most expensive campaign in history. But those who have leapt to Labour’s defence don’t have so much as a toe to stand on.
Perversely, it was ex-Tory Justice Secretary Robert Buckland who dismissed Trump’s complaint as “a bit of electioneering”, claiming he too has campaigned for the Democrats. But this is different. Buckland is no longer in government or even an MP.
Pitifully, Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner pleaded that the volunteers were campaigning in their own time. Do they really expect us to believe that? You can’t even get someone to push leaflets through ten local letterboxes, let alone fund their own transatlantic extravaganza. And we know from the LinkedIn post that ‘nearly 100 Labour Party staff’ were going – and they’re paid staff members, not volunteers. Labour officials have already waved the white flag, admitting Labour paid the expenses of Starmer’s chief of staff Morgan McSweeney’s American gallivant.
As for the party’s defence of its volunteer expenses, the line is that Labour certainly didn’t pay it. Who did then, Lord Alli? The poor man has already been bled dry after just 100 days of gifting Keir Starmer designer glasses and clothes – and is now facing allegations over breaching donation rules in the process.
Regardless of all this nitty gritty, he said she said tittle tattle, Labour’s decision to weigh in on the US election raises a much more serious concern. What happens if Trump wins?
Just a few weeks ago, Keir Starmer and Foreign Secretary David Lammy were dining with Trump for two hours in Trump Tower. Now, Starmer has returned the favour by sending out a socialist student army to back Trump’s rival, Kamala Harris, who recently called her opponent a ‘fascist’.
Whichever way you look at it, robbing Peter to pay Paul is a deeply naïve misjudgement. As a new Prime Minister just a few weeks away from commencing a new special relationship with a new President, surely your strategists should be telling you to steer well clear of it, and support whoever wins. It seems, however, the likes of McSweeney were too insistent on getting a fully-expensed taste of the US to worry about the political backlash for their boss.
And whatever happens, the damage to Starmer’s credibility is irreparable. If Harris wins, Trump will be shouting from the sidelines about election meddling for another four years. And if Trump wins, the special relationship will take a frosty turn. There will be enough transatlantic ice to sink a thousand Titanics.
I truly am sorry to keep banging on about Keir’s calamities. With every week that passes, I wonder if I will ever be able to write about anything else ever again. But this week, Starmer has sunk the UK’s most special international friendship. And next week, Rachel Reeves is set to publish her first Budget after magically discovering £50 billion to raise borrowing. That’s more than Liz Truss planned to borrow – and a lettuce lasted longer than her government, so what possible fate awaits Starmer’s barmy army?
All we know for now is this. If Trump becomes US President once again, he won’t be building a wall across the Mexican border. He’ll be building a transatlantic wall – freezing out the UK for as long as Keir Starmer is Prime Minister.
Image: Flickr/Number 10 (Simon Dawson)
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