Trump’s act of piracy in Venezuela, bombing the capital and kidnapping their president – which he openly says is to make money from the country’s vast oil reserves for American oil companies – is something that any country that believes in the rule of international law needs to condemn in the strongest terms.
Instead, what we have got from Sir Keir Starmer and Nigel Farage has been craven cowardice.
It seems like when Donald Trump asks Starmer and Farage to jump, they ask how high. Two men who are great at talking tough to the most vulnerable but are silent in the face of the powerful.
Starmer and Farage both drape themselves in flags but once again it’s really clear where their loyalty really is. It’s Trump first. They will always be on the side of the super rich and powerful – no matter how heinous the crime. This is not patriotism. It’s subservience.
This isn’t about Nicolás Maduro. This is about the Venezuelan people, who deserve better than dictators.
But Trump’s awful intervention isn’t about democracy.
It’s about control of oil, like the disaster of Iraq before. The difference here is that President Trump doesn’t even try to hide it. He boasts about his favouritism towards the US oil polluters.
To most, this has been a clear breach of international law.
Yesterday, however, Labour minister Darren Jones refused to be drawn on what he described as ‘hypothetical questions’ – while Starmer spoke in vague terms about ‘being an advocate’ of international law without condemning a breach of it.
There is no mystery. Trump is saying, loudly and repeatedly, what he’s done – he is proud of it. And yet the UK Government won’t even say what has happened.
That is shameful. One of the few Labour MPs to show some courage today, Karl Turner, said that even a GSCE law student could see it is an illegal act.
Farage and Sir Keir go on about patriotism but it rings false. They use it as a tool to attack the vulnerable, asylum seekers, people struggling because of the cost of living crisis.
They can wrap themselves in as many flags as they can get their hands on but they are not patriots.
Patriotism used to mean standing up for the rule of law. Now Labour’s happy to ape Farage, flattering a foreign president to stay in his good graces.
It’s not strength, it’s surrender; the only flags Farage and Starmer have been waving this weekend are white.
This government is enabling Trump. In press briefings, the unspoken sentiment is that the President’s wishes come before international law.
An already dangerous and fragile international order has been massively heightened by our leaders struggling to stand up to tyrants like Putin.
Our leaders’ response has been to render international law meaningless.
And Trump is openly threatening Greenland and Denmark who are right to be nervous: there is a real prospect of one Nato country attacking another.
Starmer finally said today that Denmark and Greenland must decide the latter’s fate – but Trump might rightly assume that if push came to shove, Starmer’s actions would once again fail to match his promises.
Greenland can be forgiven for questioning if the UK truly will have their back.
This is no way to carry out a foreign policy. Britain under Starmer has subjected this country to abject humiliation internationally.
He is supposed to be a respected human rights lawyer, and yet armed Israel, and we are one of the few countries in the world whose leadership has not officially recognise their actions in Gaza as a genocide.
Starmer talks tough about Russia; indeed, Russia’s invasion of a sovereign state has been an outrage. But the person laughing this weekend following Britain’s white flag to Trump will have been Putin himself.
Starmer and Farage have sold out Ukraine this weekend with their compliance to Trump. The hypocrisy of Britain’s position is a gift to dictators the world over.
We now have a Government that talks tough to the most vulnerable but whimpers and kneels to the powerful and the bullies.
This weekend has proven it beyond doubt – Keir Starmer and Nigel Farage are cowards.
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