American Right-Wingers Driven Insane by Presence of British People
Right-wingers in the United States and across the pond are spinning out about a small group of Labour Party organizers coming to canvas in battleground states.
According to a LinkedIn post by the head of operations of the Labour Party, nearly 100 of the U.K.’s left-wing party’s staff are coming to knock doors in North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. MAGA leaders are claiming this is foreign election interference, even though it is expressly legal, according to the Federal Election Commission.
“Foreign nationals are not allowed to be involved in anyway in U.S. election,” wrote Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene on Thursday, claiming that the U.K. volunteers are violating Federal Election Commission regulations. “Please go back to the UK and fix your own mass immigration problems that are ruining your country.”
“Yet another reason to vote for President Trump,” said Senator Tom Cotton.
“Isn’t this foreign election interference? Imagine if members of the Russian Duma did this,” wrote far-right poster Ian Miles Cheong, who pinned the tweet to his profile. Elon Musk agreed, writing simply, “This is illegal.”
It’s not. Although foreign nationals may not donate or take on management roles in a campaign, they “may participate in campaign activities as an uncompensated volunteer,” according to FEC guidelines.
Given that volunteers are reportedly paying for their own travel and are unpaid volunteers, they shouldn’t be breaking the law. This also isn’t a new phenomenon; in 2016 at least 70 British Labour activists came to swing states to campaign for Hillary Clinton. However, one constitutional and electoral law expert who spoke to the Telegraph suggested that if an individual spends more than $1,000 on the trip, they could be breaking an FEC rule, as travel expenses about that amount could be considered a donation to the party.
Even U.K. politicians, including Brexiteer Nigel Farage tried to paint the canvassing as nefarious. “This is direct election interference by the governing Labour Party, and particularly stupid if Trump wins. Who is paying for all of this?”
I didn’t see you whining when this happened: https://t.co/98fn0CwMAK pic.twitter.com/ee8U30Uq9B
— Micah Erfan (@micah_erfan) October 18, 2024
However, it appears that Farage didn’t have any problems directly campaigning for Donald Trump in 2020.
And one of the featured speakers at the RNC? Former Conservative Prime Minister Liz “Lettuce” Truss.