PM choosing words ‘wisely’ on Venezuela, says Cabinet minister

A Cabinet minister has defended Sir Keir Starmer’s response to US military action in Venezuela, saying he is choosing his words “wisely”.

Wes Streeting 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.”

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.

On Tuesday, Mr Streeting said he had “enormous respect” for Dame Emily, adding it was “right” that she spoke “honestly and candidly” about her views and those of her committee.

But he added that Sir Keir and the Foreign Secretary, Yvette Cooper, had “a different role and responsibility, and their words carry different weight”.

He said: “I appreciate there are others who have been more strident and have been more critical of the United States.

“The Prime Minister has a different responsibility, and he is choosing his words carefully and wisely to try and influence how events unfold from here on.”

On Monday, Ms Cooper told MPs she had raised the importance of international law in a conversation with her US counterpart Marco Rubio, but stopped short of saying whether the US action in Venezuela breached it.

Among the international laws the US may have breached, if it provides no justification for the attacks, is the founding charter of the United Nations.

Article 2 of the UN Charter says all members should refrain from “the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state”.

UN secretary general Antonio Guterres said he was “deeply concerned that rules of international law have not been respected with regard to the January 3 military action” and that the “grave” action by the US could set a precedent for future relations between nations.

Maduro and his wife were seized from their home on Saturday in a middle-of-the-night military operation in which the US carried out strikes on Caracas.

He appeared at a court in New York on Monday, when he pleaded not guilty to “narco-terrorism” charges and claimed he was a prisoner of war.