Labour is engulfed in a major internal row over Sir Keir Starmer‘s tepid support for Donald Trump‘s attack on Venezuela, after hard Left MPs demanded the US president be ostracised like Vladimir Putin.
Allies of former leader Jeremy Corbyn lashed out after the Prime Minister last night said his administration will ‘shed no tears’ over the end of Nicolas Maduro’s regime.
While he added the caveat that he still supported international law the statement sparked uproar, especially from MPs who have previously spoken out in support of the South American dictator and his regime.
Former shadow minister Richard Burgon said the PM’s statement was ‘shameful and reckless’ after action he branded a ‘coup’ by the US.
‘The Prime Minister should respond to an illegal bombing and kidnapping by Trump in exactly the way he would if Putin had carried it out,’ he said on X.
‘Either Keir Starmer believes in international law – or he doesn’t. You can’t pick and choose. Time to stand up to Trump’s gangster politics!’
But fellow Labour MP David Taylor hit back, highlighting the Leeds East MP’s long history of support for the Maduro regime.
‘You’re in no place to lecture the PM on international ethics given your previous praise for Maduro – not to mention your 11 or so appearances on Putin-controlled Russia TV,’ Mr Taylor, the Hemel Hempstead MP, said.
‘Maduro was (a) dictator who killed, tortured and repressed Venezuelans.’
Allies of former leader Jeremy Corbyn lashed out after the Prime Minister last night said his administration will ‘shed no tears’ over the end of Nicolas Maduro’s regime
While he added the caveat that he still supported international law the PM’s statement sparked uproar among MPs who have previously spoken out in support of the South American dictator
Former shadow minister Richard Burgon said the PM’s statement was ‘shameful and reckless’ after action he branded a ‘coup’ by the US. But fellow Labour MP David Taylor hit back, highlighting the Leeds East MP’s long history of support for the Maduro regime
US President Donald Trump confirmed the country’s leader and his wife, Cilia Flores, had been flown out of Caracas and indicted on ‘narco-terrorism’ charges following strikes early on Saturday.
An emergency meeting of the UN Security Council has been scheduled for Monday.
Speaking to reporters hours after Maduro’s capture, Mr Trump revealed his plans to exploit the leadership vacuum to ‘fix’ the country’s oil infrastructure and sell ‘large amounts’ of the fuel to other countries.
In a post on his Truth Social platform shortly before addressing the media, he posted an image which appeared to show the autocratic leader blindfolded aboard the US warship Iwo Jima and headed to New York.
The attack saw explosions ring out and low-flying aircraft sweep through the Venezuelan capital early on Saturday.
Fearful of angering the US President, but also conscious of his party’s veneration of Nicolas Maduro’s failed regime, the Prime Minister was reduced to saying that he wanted to ‘establish the facts, and take it from there’.
He told the BBC: ‘I’ve been a lifelong advocate of international law’, before tiptoeing along a diplomatic tightrope by calling the relationship between the US and the UK ‘vitally important for our defence, for our security, for our intelligence. It is my responsibility to make sure that relationship works.’
Privately, officials are more forthright. One diplomat told The Mail on Sunday: ‘We know the US had wargamed the ‘decapitation’ of the Venezuelan regime, and the simulation predicted chaos.
This is a recipe for anarchy, but in No 10 they seem paralysed – basically just sitting there and saying, ‘What the f***?’ They should be calling for the United Nations to oversee an election there now.’
Later last night, Sir Keir aligned more closely with Mr Trump by saying: ‘We regarded Maduro as an illegitimate president and we shed no tears about the end of his regime’. But he knows the Left of his party has long admired the communist regime and hated Mr Trump.
Apsana Begum, the Poplar and Limehouse MP who was suspended for several months by Labour last year, said the PM’s comments were ‘shameful and tremendously damaging to democracy and trust at home and the UK’s standing globally’
And Clive Lewis, another former shadow minister from the Corbyn era, added: ‘The lesson of Ukraine, Gaza, and now Venezuela is simple. When international law gives way to force, chaos and impunity follow’
Apsana Begum, the Poplar and Limehouse MP who was suspended for several months by Labour last year, said the PM’s comments were ‘shameful and tremendously damaging to democracy and trust at home and the UK’s standing globally’.
‘The British public still remember the UK’s role supporting the illegal US-led war in Iraq,’ she said.
‘Even now under international law, the people of Venezuela have the right to determine their own future. The Prime Minister’s support for Trump will forever haunt his legacy.’
And Clive Lewis, another former shadow minister from the Corbyn era, added: ‘The lesson of Ukraine, Gaza, and now Venezuela is simple. When international law gives way to force, chaos and impunity follow.
‘These rules exist to protect all of us, not just the weak. The UK must stand firmly for international law, or admit it no longer believes in it.’