Britain’s governing leftist Labour Party reportedly paid Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff to attend the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in August.
Amid accusations by former President Donald Trump that the British party has interfered in the U.S. presidential election, London’s Daily Telegraph reported that Labour had paid for Prime Minister Starmer’s chief of staff Morgan McSweeney to attend the DNC in Chicago.
Starmer’s comms director Matthew Doyle also attended the convention; however, Labour has claimed that the Democrat-aligned Progressive Policy Institute think tank financed his trip. A party source cited by the paper denied that either top Labour staffer had assisted the Kamala Harris campaign in any regard.
Both Labour staffers were listed in a complaint filed to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) by the Donald Trump campaign this week, citing media reports to allege that illegal foreign “contributions” were given to the Harris campaign by Labour staffer volunteering efforts and meetings with party staffers and the campaign.
According to The Telegraph, McSweeney and Doyle had “brushed shoulders” with campaign staff during the convention, though Labour claimed that no official meetings were held. The party also denied funding any volunteer efforts by Labour staffers on behalf of the Harris campaign.
However, in a now-deleted post on LinkedIn, the Labour Party’s head of operations, Sofia Patel, said that she was organizing “nearly 100 Labour Party staff (current and former)” to campaign in battleground states for Harris. In her post, Patel said, “We will sort your housing,” which the Trump campaign has interpreted to mean that the party was financing the campaign efforts.
The BBC reports that Labour claims it was merely a case of ‘imprecise language’. Prime Minister Starmer said this week that any Labour officials campaigning in the U.S. have done so “as volunteers, they’re staying, I think, with other volunteers over there.”
Meanwhile, there have also been accusations of potential election interference by the Labour Party-tied Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) non-profit. According to leaked memos published by investigative journalists Paul Thacker and Matt Taibbi, the CCDH is actively trying to “Kill Musk’s Twitter”.
The leftist non-profit—initially helped established by Starmer’s now-chief of staff, McSweeney—appeared to suggest in the documents that it would attempt to pressure advertisers to drain X of its finances.
The report from Taibbi and Thacker went on to reveal that the CCDH is seeking to deepen ties with the Biden-Harris administration as well as senior Democrats on the Hill, including Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), a leading force behind the move to regulate so-called misinformation online.
Speaking with the Washington Post, CCDH CEO Imran Ahmed denied that his organization was working with the British government to interfere in the American presidential election.
Ahmed, a former Labour Party political strategist who also sits on the steering committee of the UK government’s independent Commission for Countering Extremism, said: “There’s no connection between the Labour Party and Center for Countering Digital Hate.”
“The Center for Countering Digital Hate researches conspiracy theories. We don’t engage with them,” he said.
