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Sir Keir Starmer has insisted his relationship with Donald Trump has not been jeopardised after the Trump team filed a legal complaint against the Labour
Party over its activists travelling to the US to support Kamala Harris in the tightly fought US presidential race.
The prime minister said on Tuesday he had “established a good relationship” with Mr Trump as he sought to downplay the role Labour Party activists were playing in the US election.
The Trump campaign has filed a complaint to the independent Federal Election Commission alleging “illegal foreign campaign contributions and interference” to help his Democrat rival in the US presidential election.
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The prime minister told reporters on his 28-hour flight to Samoa for the annual Commonwealth leaders’ summit that Labour Party members were going over as volunteers rather than on the Labour Party books.
“The Labour Party has volunteers, who have gone over pretty much every election,” he said.
“They’re doing it in their spare time, they’re doing it as volunteers, they’re staying, I think, with other volunteers over there. That’s what they’ve done in previous elections, that’s what they’re doing in this election and that’s really straightforward.”
The Labour Party has insisted it is not funding the travel or accommodation for activists. Federal election rules stipulate foreign volunteers can’t spend more than $1,000 (£770) helping candidates.
However, in filing the complaint, Mr Trump’s legal team cited media reports that Labour Party officials, including the prime minister’s chief of staff Morgan McSweeney and Matthew Doyle, Downing Street’s director of communications, had travelled to the US in recent months to advise the Harris campaign.
The Trump team also cited a now-deleted LinkedIn post by Sofia Patel, director of operations for…
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