Some say “Whataboutism” is never justified, that it’s just a cheap rhetorical device. Wrong.
Whataboutism is simply a label used to deride usually valid comparisons which are inconvenient and damaging for the Left and the unaccountable “elite.” Just as “populism” is now deemed pejorative, when in fact it simply describes movements, such as Brexit, that are popular with most of the people who care.
So let me commit some Whataboutism.
How would the “elite” react if President Trump had sent scores of his campaign experts to Blighty to help weaken the Remainers?
What would 10 Downing Street, or the Auntie Beeb say if the 45th – and possibly 47th – President, the current Leader of the Opposition sent his America First staffers to campaign for the Tories, or God-forbid, Nigel Farage and his insurgent party? Just think about the apoplectic fits and woke rage the chattering classes and the Oxbridge set would engage in.
So why does PM Starmer think it’s fine for Labour to send its minions to the US to work for the collapsing Democrat Party campaign of Kamala Harris? Does he forget the UK electorate’s reaction to President Obama threatening the British people they’d have to get to “the back of the queue” if they dared vote for Brexit?
It’s not just the fact that it’s unseemly, and it threatens the “Special Relationship” between London and Washington. It’s not just cretinous, as is Lammy’s calling Donald Trump a “neo-Nazi sociopath,” it may be a felony.
We have rather strict laws in the United States on foreigners being involved in our elections, and we have very strict laws about funds from abroad ending up being used on our soil for political campaign purposes. Just ask Ng Lap Seng, the Chinese millionaire arrested by the FBI for bringing $4.5 million into the US and for funnelling foreign funds into the Democratic National Committee during the Clinton years. Or ask billionaire Hui Qin, sentenced to prison just this May for his “straw” donations to various US candidates and their political campaigns.
With her LinkedIn post, recruiting 100 campaigners to work for Harris and the Democrats in 4 crucial battleground states, Sofia Patel, Labour’s head of operations, may have just broken the law 100 times over.
Who’s paying for the staffers’ time, plane tickets, and hotel rooms? If a penny comes from the UK, it’s a felony.
Is Labour so desperate to help a cratering Kamala that they’re ready to go to jail in Nevada, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, or Virginia? How stupid is the party that won the last election in the UK? Don’t answer that.
Maybe this is all because Starmer and his party forgot that less than a quarter of Brits gave them their “mandate.” Probably.