Eight years ago, Kezia Dugdale famously traveled to the US to campaign for Hillary Clinton in the US election, and so profound was her impact that she ended up taking a selfie with a cardboard cutout of her chosen candidate. Americans just don't care about UK politicians one way or another, and frankly that is the way it should be.
Apparently, this year there are some hundred or so Labour members who have travelled over to the US to campaign for Kamala Harris. No doubt, their impact will be every bit as potent as Dugdale's was.
However, there is a very important difference between the two scenarios: back in 2016 Labour were in oppositio in the UK, and indeed were essentially an irrelevance in domestic politics, never mind the US. In 2024, however, Labour are now the party of government in the UK, meaning that the actions of representatives of that party are, at least in some ways, reflective of the attitudes of their party, and by extension our government as a whole. Kier Starmer is going to have to work with (well, play lapdog to) whoever wins the US election, and if that is Trump he's going to be starting from a position of having provided at least tacit support to the other side.
Bottom line: I don't particularly think members of UK political parties should be getting involved in the US election at all, on any side, but I certainly think our party of government must stay out of it.
But maybe that's just me.
(I have no particular dog in this fight, mostly because it's for the US to pick their own leaders, and partly because they seem to have found the two absolute worst possible candidates. I have a very marginal preference for Harris, but as with Biden before her, her only selling point is that she's not Donald Trump. Whoever wins, I think the next four years are going to be pretty horrible.)
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