Kemi Badenoch says Donald Trump’s US was ‘morally proper’ to grab ‘brutal’ Venezuelan dictator Maduro from his lair in daring raid

Donald Trump was ‘morally right’ to send US forces into Venezuela to snatch its dictator Nicolas Maduro, Kemi Badenoch said today.

The Conservative leader cited her upbringing in military-ruled Nigeria as she backed the shock move by the United States at the weekend.

In a daring raid special forces extracted Maduro from Caracas and flew him to New York to face drugs charges.

It sent shockwaves through the international community, raising questions about whether it was legal under international law and could embolden Russia and China to carry out similar acts.

But Ms Badenoch told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘Venezuela was a brutal regime. We didn’t even recognise it as a legitimate government. 

‘I think that what’s happened is quite extraordinary. But I understand why America has done it.

And the reason why I say this is because, where the legal certainty is not yet clear, morally I do think it was the right thing to do.’

She added: ‘I grew up under a military dictatorship [in Nigeria], so I know what it’s like to have someone like Maduro in charge.

‘I know what it’s like to have people celebrating in the street. So I’m not condemning the US.’

Mrs Badenoch was born in England in 1980 but was raised in Nigeria during a period when it was ruled by a succession of military dictatorships. She returned to the UK as a teenager in the mid 1990s.

He intervention on Venezuela comes as Sir Keir Starmer’s government tries to tread a fine line over the raid. 

Sir Keir has been reluctant to criticise the US action directly, with Europe still looking to Washington to provide security guarantees for Ukraine.

On Monday, he would only say that international law must be the ‘anchor’ for Venezuela’s future and that it was up to the US to justify its actions.

But he has come under pressure from some Labour backbenchers to condemn Saturday’s raid on Caracas that saw then president Nicolas Maduro captured and taken to New York.

Those critics include Dame Emily Thornberry, the chairwoman of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, who has described the action as a breach of international law.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting today said the Prime Minister was focused on ‘how to make a challenging situation better, not worse’ for both Europe’s collective security and the Venezuelan people.

He told BBC Breakfast: ‘What we’ve seen in Venezuela are further morbid symptoms of the disintegration of the rules-based system.

‘And a world without rules is a world in which we are all less safe.’