Good morning. Prior to the holidays, the Labour leader had intended to use the first week back after the parliamentary break to focus on ministers' actions to reduce the cost of living. He set out this case recently in a piece where he referenced measures including plans to cut energy bills. Unfortunately, Starmer’s economic media push has been blown out of the headlines by the former US president, and his entirely different approach to ensuring supporters receive cheap energy.
Not a single figure in mainstream UK politics seems very keen on adopting the Trump approach – which is likely good news for Norway.
But there is a heated discussion under way about what the UK government should be willing to say about Trump’s decision to extradite Nicolás Maduro, and install a successor with someone anticipated to be more compliant with US demands, particularly in relation to the country’s oil industry.
Keir Starmer has declined to censure the American intervention, and the government has dodged questions about whether or not it considered what happened as legal. Recently, European Union members except Hungary issued a collective declaration which, while not explicitly condemning, did emphasise the value of global rules, and by inference suggest Trump of disregarding it. It said:
EU members call for calm and restraint by all actors, to avoid a worsening and to secure a peaceful resolution to the crisis.
The EU recalls that, under all circumstances, the tenets of the rules-based order and the UN Charter must be upheld. Members of the United Nations Security Council have a special duty to defend those standards, as a cornerstone of the global security framework.
Mike Tapp, was conducting an series of media appearances this morning and, when asked if Starmer was declining to say the Venezuelan leader's removal broke international law because he was afraid of upsetting Trump, Tapp responded:
Absolutely not. UK ministers is, and will, be in conversations with the US administration. And it’s for the Americans to lay out the legal basis for the steps that they’ve undertaken. And we’re also talking with key partners looking at the juridical dimension of this.
But last night, in an interview on the BBC, the chair of the Commons foreign affairs committee (and a former shadow attorney general), said she was very concerned 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.
Asked about Starmer declining to say that Trump was in violation of global rules, Thornberry said, because the PM was in office, he had to weigh up “a number of considerations”. But she was in a separate situation because she was not a government member, she said. She added:
Ultimately there is no escaping the fact. This is not a legal action.
[Starmer] may well want to listen to what the justification is from the US administration. I can get in front of everyone and say I literally think of anything that could be a proper justification.
Here is the schedule for the day.
10am: John Swinney, gives a address in Glasgow. The Scottish opposition leader, and Scottish Conservative leader, are also giving talks, at mid-morning and 1pm respectively. All the party heads are gearing up to the Scottish parliament vote in May.
Morning: Keir Starmer is on a tour in Berkshire where he is due to make comments to the press.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
2.30pm: The home secretary, takes queries in the Commons.
After 3.30pm: The foreign secretary, is expected to give a statement to MPs about Venezuela.
