Donald Trump's campaign accuses UK's ruling Labour Party of 'blatant foreign interference'

LONDON ? Former President Donald Trump's campaign filed a legal complaint late Tuesday against Britain's ruling Labour Party, accusing it of "blatant foreign interference" ahead of the Nov. 5 presidential election.

The complaint was made in a formal letter sent by Trump campaign lawyer Gary Lawkowski to the Federal Election Commission. The allegation follows a public acknowledgment by a senior Labour Party figure that almost 100 current and former Labour Party staff were heading across the Atlantic to campaign for Vice President Kamala Harris and the Democrats in key swing states.

The revelation was made last week in a post on the LinkedIn social media platform by Sofia Patel, the Labour Party's head of operations. The post has since been deleted.

Two weeks until Election Day, Harris and Trump appear to be neck-and-neck in the race for the White House. A new Reuters/Ipsos poll on Tuesday showed Harris with a slim national lead over Trump, while a top Harris advisor said each of the seven battleground states could be decided by a single percentage point.

It is not illegal for foreign nationals to serve as campaign volunteers in U.S. elections provided they are not compensated in any way, according to FEC rules. Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer attempted to downplay the complaint's significance Wednesday, saying the officials were "doing it in their spare time" and implying that any Labour activists campaigning in the U.S. were doing so in a personal capacity, and at their own expense. Officials, activists and strategists from Britain's center-left Labour Party have long enjoyed close contacts with Democrats, as have Republicans with Britain's opposition center-right Conservative Party.

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But the Trump campaign complaint, which also cited the American Revolutionary War and media reports about various other meetings between Labour Party strategists and the Harris campaign, questioned whether there was "illegal foreign campaign contributions and interference" by Labour to help Harris in the U.S. presidential vote.

"When representatives of the British government previously sought to go door-to-door in America, it did not end well for them," Lawkowski wrote in a letter to the FEC dated Monday, referring to the American Revolution.

"This past week marked the 243 anniversary of the surrender of British forces at the Battle of Yorktown, a military victory that ensured that the United States would be politically independent of Great Britian. It appears that the Labour Party and the Harris for President campaign have forgotten the message," he added, misspelling "Britain."

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Nigel Farage, a close Trump ally and lawmaker who leads Reform UK, said in a WhatsApp message to USA TODAY that Labour made a "big mistake" by courting such close contact with the Harris campaign and that it's now trying to "backtrack" on the issue of its officials' personal expenses in the U.S.

Lawkowski called for an "immediate investigation" by the FEC. The Harris campaign has not commented.

Allegations of election meddling have cast a long shadow over U.S. elections in recent years. The U.S. Justice Department has warned that countries such as Russia, China and Iran pose a "clear and present danger" to foreign interference in next month's vote by spreading and amplifying false information, as well as by direct hacking attempts and bankrolling social media influencers. Britain has not been identified by the Justice Department as an electoral threat to either U.S. presidential candidate, political party or American democracy more generally.

After the Labour Party rejected the accusations from Trump's campaign, several British media outlets noted that the complaint risked jeopardizing Starmer's relationship with Trump were the latter to win the presidency.

"Keir Starmer’s Trump problem is getting worse," read the headline of an online story published Wednesday in "The Spectator magazine," whose writers skew conservative in their politics.

British bookmaker Betfair Exchange said in the wake of the filed complaint that Trump's odds of winning the U.S. election had shortened to 5/8 or a 62% chance, Betfair's shortest ever odds on Trump compared to the previous elections he has contested. In 2020, Betfair gave Trump odds of 3/1 or a 33% chance of winning. In 2016, he was even further out, with odds of 6/1, a 15% chance of winning.

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This story has been updated with additional information.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump accuses UK's Labour Party of US election 'interference'