Welcome back. Before Christmas, Keir Starmer had planned to use the initial days back after the parliamentary break to highlight government actions to reduce the cost of living. He set out this case recently in an article where he referenced measures including plans to cut energy bills. However, Starmer’s economic PR blitz has been blown out of the headlines by Donald Trump, and his entirely different strategy to guaranteeing supporters get access to affordable power.
No one in British political life seems particularly eager on embracing the American method – which is probably good news for other nations.
But there is an intense debate under way about what the UK government should be willing to say about the American action to abduct Nicolás Maduro, and install a successor with someone expected to be more cooperative with US demands, especially in regarding the country’s oil industry.
Keir Starmer has refused to censure the American intervention, and the administration has avoided questions about whether or not it considered what happened as legal. Recently, all EU states except one nation issued a collective declaration which, while not explicitly condemning, did stress the importance of international law, and by implication accuse Trump of disregarding it. It said:
The European Union urge restraint and caution by all actors, to avoid escalation and to ensure a peaceful resolution to the crisis.
The Union recalls that, under all circumstances, the tenets of international law and the UN Charter must be upheld. Permanent members of the United Nations Security Council have a particular responsibility to defend those standards, as a pillar of the global security framework.
Mike Tapp, was doing an interview round this morning and, when asked if Starmer was refusing to say the Venezuelan leader's removal broke international law because he was worried of antagonising Trump, Tapp responded:
Not at all. The British government are and will remain in discussions with the US administration. And it’s for the Americans to lay out the juridical rationale for the action that they’ve taken. And we’re also talking with close allies looking at the legal aspect of this.
But recently, in an interview on the BBC, Emily Thornberry (and a former shadow attorney general), said she was deeply worried about the way Trump seems to think, like Russia’s Vladimir Putin and the Chinese president, that he could do what he wanted in his area of control.
Questioned about Starmer declining to say that Trump was in breach of global rules, Thornberry said, because the PM was in office, he had to balance “a number of considerations”. But she was in a different position because she was not a government member, she said. She added:
In the end there is no escaping the fact. This is an unlawful move.
[Starmer] may well want to listen to what the justification is from the American government. I can state before us and say I cannot think of anything that could be a valid excuse.
Here is the agenda for the day.
10am: John Swinney, gives a address in Glasgow. The Scottish Labour leader, and Scottish Tory leader, are also giving talks, at mid-morning and lunchtime in turn. All the party heads are gearing up to the Holyrood elections in May.
Morning: Keir Starmer is on a visit in Berkshire where he is scheduled to make comments to the media.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
2.30pm: Shabana Mahmood, takes questions in the Commons.
After 3.30pm: Yvette Cooper, is expected to give a update to MPs about Venezuela.
