Welcome back. Prior to the holidays, Keir Starmer had intended to use the initial days back after the holiday recess to highlight government actions to reduce the cost of living. He outlined this case recently in a piece where he cited steps including plans to reduce utility costs. Unfortunately, Starmer’s cost of living PR blitz has been overshadowed of the headlines by Donald Trump, and his entirely different approach to guaranteeing his voters get access to cheap energy.
No one in British political life appears particularly eager on adopting the Trump approach – 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, particularly in regarding the country’s oil industry.
Keir Starmer has refused to criticise the US action, and the administration has avoided questions about whether or not it viewed what happened as legal. Recently, European Union members apart from one nation issued a joint statement which, while not overtly critical, did emphasise the importance of global rules, and by inference accuse Trump of disregarding it. It said:
EU members call for calm and restraint by all actors, to prevent escalation and to ensure a peaceful resolution to the crisis.
The EU reiterates that, under any conditions, the tenets of the rules-based order and the United Nations charter must be upheld. Members of the United Nations Security Council have a special duty to defend those standards, as a pillar of the international security architecture.
The migration minister, was doing an interview round this morning and, when asked if Starmer was declining to say the Venezuelan leader's removal broke international law because he was worried of antagonising Trump, Tapp responded:
Absolutely not. The British government are and will remain in discussions with the US administration. And it’s for the United States to lay out the juridical rationale for the action 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, Emily Thornberry (and a ex- shadow attorney general), said she was deeply worried about the way Trump seems to think, like Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping, that he could do what he wanted in his sphere of influence.
Asked about Starmer refusing to say that Trump was in violation of international law, she said, because the PM was in office, he had to weigh up “a number of considerations”. But she was in a different position because she was not a government member, she said. She went on:
In the end there is no escaping the fact. This is not a legal action.
[Starmer] may well want to hear what the reasoning is from the US administration. I can state before everyone and say I cannot think of anything that could be a proper justification.
Here is the agenda for the day.
10am: John Swinney, gives a speech in Glasgow. The Scottish Labour leader, and Scottish Conservative leader, are also giving talks, at 10.30am and lunchtime in turn. All the party heads are gearing up to the Holyrood elections in May.
Morning: The Prime Minister is on a tour in Berkshire where he is due to make comments to the media.
11.30am: The Prime Minister's office holds a lobby briefing.
2.30pm: Shabana Mahmood, takes questions in the Commons.
After 3.30pm: The foreign secretary, is anticipated to give a update to MPs about the ongoing situation.
