There’s bound to be some red-faces at the Labour Party HQ these days. Perhaps it wasn’t a good idea after-all to send Labour Party activists to America to help the Harris campaign telling them to “help our friends across the pond elect their first female president” and exhorting them to “show those Yanks how to win elections!”.
Everybody knows this was just another cheap stunt by Starmer & Co to ingratiate themselves with the Democrats in the run-up to the November presidential election in the United States. Wherever they go the hundred or so Labour volunteers are hardly going to tip the balance in favour of Kamala Harris. But the pompous Labour emails that were inevitably leaked played directly into the hands of the Trump team.
The Trump campaign’s lawyer, Gary Lawkowski, says the donation of time and services by British volunteers amounts to “illegal foreign national contributions” to the Harris campaign.
“When representatives of the British government previously sought to go door-to-door in America, it did not end well for them,” Lawkowski said recalling the American war of independence which ended British control of New England in 1783 and wittily adding that
“It appears the Labour Party and the Harris for President campaign have forgotten the message”.
Be that as it may it’s added a new angle to the Trump campaign’s efforts in the race to the White House and it’s embarrassed Starmer – who’s had to backtrack to cover himself in case Trump actually wins.
While American elections are keenly followed by those in the British ruling class who believe Britain’s global imperialist interests are best served under the protective wing of the United States the outcome makes no difference to British workers who have no say in the vote and no influence on the outcome.
Kamala Harris’ Democrats still believe in the ‘new world order’, though they now prefer to call it “globalisation”. Trump, on the other hand, represents circles in the Republican Party who want to cut back US military expenditure in Europe and north-east Asia so that they can concentrate on controlling the global energy market by taking over the entire Middle East and restoring US imperialism’s hegemony over south and central America, He says he’s in favour of a rapprochement with the Russians. But when he was last in the White House he remained a prisoner of the most aggressive circles within the American ruling class.
In the USA American communists are divided. Some traditionally endorse the Democrats – a liberal bourgeois party that is supported by a section of the American labour movement. Others will be backing protest candidates standing on anti-war or ecological platforms while a tiny fraction even argue in support of Trump on the grounds that he’s stated his willingness to end the war in Ukraine.
Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are neck and neck in the opinion polls. No one can safely predict the outcome of the November poll. What is certain is that neither candidate poses any threat to the interests of America’s ruling circles.
