Labour’s “ naïve and gauche” decision to allow party staff to campaign against Donald Trump faced fresh fury last night.
Sir Keir Starmer was told his party organising trips to America could be “damaging to our national interests”.
The Prime Minister was also warned his top aides “should have spotted” the “mistake” sooner and prevented the controversy.
The Republican presidential candidate’s campaign has filed a complaint about Sir Keir Starmer’s party with US federal election officials.
It follows reports of senior Labour officials meeting with Democrat Kamala Harris’s campaign, and party staffers volunteering on the ground for her ahead of the crunch ballot on November 5.
Former shadow chancellor Ed Balls told the Political Currency podcast: “It’s naive and gauche … These kinds of visits have been happening for decades but this is a different election.
“You would think people would have known from 2020 how delicate this is. Both Keir Starmer and David Lammy had been going out of their way to say they would work with Trump.
“Of course, they’ll work with the American President of the day, [and they are] trying to make up for some of the things that they themselves had said.
“Certainly, David Lammy said some very strong things about Donald Trump in the years before.
“When you start organising a sort of a posse of campaigners as a foreign party, now a foreign government, an alarm bell should have rung, and there will be people kicking themselves, thinking ‘I saw that and I didn’t do anything.’
“If you’re in opposition for years, you get used to the idea that nobody cares that much what you do, and when you’re in government, suddenly it changes overnight.
“They won’t make this mistake again, but it’s definitely a mistake, and somebody should have spotted it earlier.”
Sir Keir insisted any members of his party were in the US on an entirely voluntary basis.
The Trump team also cited a now-deleted LinkedIn post by Sofia Patel, director of operations for Labour, that suggested the party could be paying accommodation costs for activists, with the post stating “we will sort out your housing”.
Shadow Commons leader Chris Philp has called for a debate on foreign interference in elections, arguing that if the Labour Party is “organising interference or campaigning in another country’s election” it will make it difficult for the UK to work with America.
During business questions, he said: “I understand that over 100 Labour Party staffers are enjoying themselves in the United States currently, in the presidential election under way now.
“Ministers have claimed this is all spontaneous, all organised themselves, all paid for themselves as well, but that claim appears – if I can put it politely – grossly implausible now it’s emerged in a now-deleted social media tweet or post, that the whole thing was arranged by the Labour Party’s director of operations.”
He added: “Does the Leader agree that it is actually damaging to our national interest?”
Commons Leader Lucy Powell replied: “Campaigning abroad happens in every election, and people do this in a personal capacity, as well he knows, but I do think it is a bit rich, isn’t it really coming from the party opposite?
“I mean, their would-be leaders have spent weeks debating and arguing over who would vote or who wouldn’t vote for Donald Trump, and the former prime minister Liz Truss went to the Republican National Convention and spent her time there discrediting the sitting president.”
“It is for the American people to decide who their next president is, and this Government is committed and determined to work with whoever wins that election,” she added.
