Ben Quinn
Sun 13 October 2024
Matt Klaber with Tim Walz on the morning after his speech to the party's convention in Chicago on 22 August. Klaber, now in London, is a campaigner for the Democrats.Photograph: Matt Klaber
On a chilly afternoon in central London, the battle for the US presidential election is being waged with no less fervour than if the campaigners were on the other side of the Atlantic.
Surrounded by posters for the Democratic ticket of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, volunteers at an office organised by Democrats Abroad have been hitting the phones, calling Americans living abroad, including wavering Republicans, to urge them to register to vote.
The event was just one that took place on a Day of Action at locations around the UK, estimated to be home to as many as 200,000 Americans.
By evening, the London activists had a surprise visit from Nancy Pelosi, former speaker of the House of Representatives, who had originally been billed to join a zoom rally which was joined by other chapters based in locations ranging from Scotland to English university cities.
“Many of us have been living abroad for years, even decades, but we care deeply about what’s at stake back home and we also want it to be a place that we still recognise when we return, whether that’s a country where democracy has been preserved or even one that is still safe when it comes to the rights of women, our sisters and our daughters,” said Kristin Wolfe, Chair of Democrats Abroad UK and a resident in London since 2007.
The potential role of overseas Americans voters – who do not appear in national polls – should not be underestimated. In 2020 their votes made all the difference when it came to delivering the key swing states of Arizona and Georgia to Joe Biden.
With the race so tight and the stakes this high – Wolfe’s voice cracks as she insists that US democracy is imperilled in a way not seen since the American civil war – Harris supporters in the UK have raised their game.
At bus shelters in parts of London with higher concentrations of Americans you’ll find adverts placed strategically by the group. For the first time too, digital advertising aimed at the community is being deployed on Google.
There are also efforts to reach out and encourage voter registration face to face, such as at freshers’ fairs in Oxford. On other recent weekend afternoons, activists set up open-air tables in Hyde Park and at Marylebone Farmer’s Market in London to catch any passing Americans.
Among curious passersby who stopped at the market table was the British pop star, Harry Styles, although the singer is not known to have a US passport.
That said, Democrats in the UK have suddenly found a local celebrity of their own in the form of Matt Klaber, who was a student at the high school where Tim Walz once taught and who recently spoke in London at a “re-watch” of the vice-presidential debate.
Klaber – a London-based software engineer and Democratic activist – also played a role in Walz’s own political “origin story” when he took students to see a George W Bush campaign rally in 2004, only for some of them to be turned away by organisers who believed they were Democrats. The experience led Walz to seek public office.
One of those students was Klaber, who insists that Walz’s wholesome public persona is exactly true to the one he and others have long known in person.
“My earliest recollection of Tim is of being in the school library and seeing him rush out with his jacket and briefcase because he was being activated as a national guardsman who was going to help lead the response to some flooding,” he says.
“The whole campaign metaphor of being a coach might have been a bit foreign to me as I wasn’t necessarily into sports, but actually they’ve nailed it. He is everybody’s coach, whether it’s what he was doing when he was a teacher, what he did in 2004 when there was the incident at the rally, or what he’s doing now by stepping up.”
Efforts by Democrats Abroad UK to mobilise US voters in the UK and elsewhere are taking on a new urgency as registration deadlines loom for states including Wisconsin (16 October) and Pennsylvania (21 October).
So too are efforts to counter misinformation in the form of misleading claims by Donald Trump that Democrats were somehow preparing to “cheat” and that ballots were being sent overseas without proper checks.
“That’s just so blatantly false because the truth is that processes of the most rigorous kind are in place,” said Wolfe, who accuses Trump of seeking to intentionally confuse and mislead because he is concerned about the potential impact of overseas voters.
‘Keirmala – Could a US election win for Harris yield a new special relationship?’
If the current polls are right and the swing states break to the Democrats, Keir Starmer will be calling Kamala Harris on the morning of November 6 to congratulate her as the 47th President of the United States.
Such a scenario – and one that few dare to predict at this stage – raises the intriguing prospect of two newly elected progressive leaders, one in the White House and the other in Downing Street, together in power for at least four years or more.
The implications, both for the transatlantic relationship and for wider, global economic and security issues the two countries face, are potentially significant. Many are speculating it could herald the beginning of a deeper engagement between Democrats and Labour as in the 1990s driven by Bill Clinton and Tony Blair’s shared commitment to “Third Way” politics.
Special relationship, personal relationship
As was the case three decades ago, the nature of the personal relationship between the two leaders will be crucial. Yet, oddly, given the roles Harris and Starmer have held for the last four years, the two have still to meet in person.
As leader of the opposition from 2020, Starmer, did not visit the US at all, and his three trips since the UK election in July have not included a meeting with the Democrat candidate – even though he dined with her Republican rival, Donald Trump, when in New York last month. As Vice President, Harris has only touched down in the UK once, almost a year ago, for Rishi Sunak’s AI summit.
So, if the stars align next month, the prospective President and newly installed Prime Minister will need to get know each from scratch. They will, however, have lots to talk about, not least their shared backgrounds as distinguished public prosecutors and political late developers.
Born within two years of each other in the first half of the 1960s, both graduated in law in their early 20s. Harris spent 12 years as an elected prosecutor, first as District Attorney of San Francisco and then as California’s Attorney General, while Starmer served as head of the Crown Prosecution Service for England and Wales between 2008 and 2013 after two decades as a renowned human rights barrister.
Both then transitioned into national politics in their 50s, a relatively late age in the UK and US. Starmer was elected as an MP for his home seat of Holborn and St Pancras in London in 2015, while Harris entered the US Senate to represent her home state of California a year-and-a-half later.
Finding common ground
This shared professional experience has had a profound impact on both, shaping two political leaders who possess remarkably similarly motivations, outlooks and leadership styles. It tells us much about their strengths, and their shortcomings too.
“Kamala Harris is by nature and instinct a lawyer and prosecutor,” says Jamal Simmons, who served as her communications director in 2022. “She’s driven by facts and the evidence, and interested in understanding what practical steps are needed to make change.”
It is an approach shared by Starmer, according to his former chief of staff, Sam White.
“Keir’s a pragmatic, evidence-led politician focused on outcomes,” says White, who worked for the Labour leader while Simmons was in the White House. “He’s analytical and cerebral rather than someone led by his gut.”
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But is this deliberative, even judicious, style suited to a fast-moving political environment that often requires politicians to lead by instinct?
“That’s not the Vice President’s natural state but she’s an incredible learner who listens to advice. She has brought in excellent people from more traditional political backgrounds to advise and support her,” says Simmons.
Starmer is a “good learner” too, says White, but is suspicious of woolly, ill-defined political visions divorced from people’s lives. His five missions were his attempt to bridge the gap.
Yet, as Simmons acknowledges, “many people like to dream and to shoot for a big goal” and political leaders do need to be able to articulate that and to use it to effect change. Certainly, Harris has shown over the last three months she can move the needle in that direction when she needs to.
Without question, Harris and Starmer are bound, too, by a deep commitment to public service born from a deep-seated desire to improve the lives of people without a voice or power. So, while they are unlikely to spend much time exchanging airy notions of political ideology, they will be keen to share experiences and collaborate for shared benefit.
Close collaboration
The Harris campaign has already taken advice from some of the key figures behind Starmer’s election victory in July, and the Prime Minister’s new chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, was one of a clutch of senior Labour advisers at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August.
On foreign policy issues, too, there will be clear alignment. Harris has been resolute in her support for Ukraine and has pledged her steadfast loyalty to NATO and the US’s wider multilateral commitments.
There is also the real potential for new areas of areas of collaboration to open up between the UK and US on trade, clean energy transition and artificial intelligence. A Harris Presidency will be supportive of UK seeking to build a closer relationship with the EU too.
Of course, similarities in political leanings and personality are not sufficient in themselves to outweigh big strategic national interests, particularly those of the US. The long-term American shift in focus from Europe to the Indo-Pacific will continue, and an intensified competition with China will remain a challenging issue for the UK and Europe.
Even so, as well as the overwhelming sense of relief that would mark the avoidance of a Trump White House, the morning of the 6th November could be the start of something important. It will not necessarily be spectacular or extravagant because that’s not the style of either leader.
But a new “special relationship” between Harris and Starmer could provide a powerful boost to democratic politics across the West and help deliver real impact at home and abroad.
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