By Kate Holton and Andrew MacAskill
LONDON (Reuters) -Donald Trump's campaign has accused British Prime Minister Keir Starmer's Labour Party of "blatant foreign interference" in the U.S. presidential election after some volunteers travelled to help campaign for Kamala Harris.
The Republican candidate's camp has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission in Washington, calling for an investigation into what it termed apparently illegal contributions from Labour to the Harris campaign.
British political volunteers have long travelled to the U.S. ahead of elections, with activists of the centre-left Labour Party typically supporting the Democrats, its sister party, and Conservatives backing the Republicans.
British officials, who asked not to be named, told Reuters that some senior Labour advisers travelled to meet Democrat strategists in recent months, on the back of their landslide victory in the British election in July.
One topic they discussed was how Labour won back almost all the former industrialised areas that abandoned them in 2019.
Labour leader Starmer denied that the complaint would damage relations with Trump if the former president wins again on Nov. 5, saying Labour supporters were volunteering in their own time.
But the complaint is a potential complication.
Trump, who is close to Britain's right-wing politician Nigel Farage and previously had good ties with former prime minister Boris Johnson, had praised Starmer when the two met in September at Trump Tower.
Greg Swenson, the chairman of Republican Overseas UK, said Trump is hard to predict, but if he does win the presidency next month this incident is unlikely to damage relations with Starmer.
"Trump takes things personally and lets personal disputes affect him," Swenson told Reuters. "But I think Trump will get over it. There may be a little scar tissue from this, but probably not."
RULES ON FOREIGNERS
According to U.S. rules, foreigners can volunteer on election campaigns but cannot make financial contributions.
The allegations of interference will hinge on whether Labour covered any activists' costs.
The Trump complaint cited media reports and a now deleted LinkedIn post from Sofia Patel, head of operations at Britain's Labour Party, who wrote that nearly 100 current and former Labour party staff would be travelling to the U.S. in the coming weeks to help elect Harris, the Democratic vice-president.
Patel's post had said she had 10 spots to fill in North Carolina, adding "we will sort your housing".
Labour said in a statement that any party members taking part would be doing so at their own expense. Housing was provided by other volunteers.
The FEC previously fined the campaign of Bernie Sanders after Australia's Labour Party funded the flights and food of its volunteers to travel to the U.S. and support his campaign.
"I write on behalf of Donald J. Trump for President 2024, Inc. to request an immediate investigation into blatant foreign interference in the 2024 Presidential Election in the form of apparent illegal foreign national contributions," it said.
"Those searching for foreign interference in our elections need to look no further than (the) LinkedIn post ... The interference is occurring in plain sight."
In a press release titled "The British are coming", the Trump campaign also accused the "far-left Labour Party" of inspiring "Kamala's dangerously liberal policies and rhetoric."
Starmer, travelling on a flight to Samoa, told reporters that Labour volunteers had gone to pretty much every U.S. election. "They're doing it in their spare time, they're doing it as volunteers, they're staying I think with other volunteers over there," he said. "That's really straightforward."
(writing by Kate Holton; Editing by Michael Perry, Andrew Cawthorne, William Maclean and Sharon Singleton)