Good morning. Prior to the holidays, the Labour leader had intended to use the first week back after the holiday recess to focus on ministers' efforts to bring down the cost of living. He outlined this case yesterday in a piece where he cited measures including plans to cut energy bills. Unfortunately, his cost of living media push has been blown out of the news agenda by the former US president, and his entirely different approach to ensuring his voters get access to cheap energy.
Not a single figure in British political life seems very keen on adopting the American method – which is probably good news for other nations.
But there is an intense debate ongoing about what the UK government should be willing to say about Trump’s decision to abduct the Venezuelan president, and install a successor with someone expected to be more compliant with American interests, especially in regarding the country’s oil industry.
The Prime Minister has refused to criticise the American intervention, and the government has avoided questions about whether or not it viewed what happened as legal. Last night, all EU states except Hungary issued a joint statement which, while not overtly critical, did stress the value of international law, and by inference accuse Trump of ignoring it. It said:
EU members urge restraint and restraint by all actors, to prevent a worsening and to ensure a peaceful solution to the crisis.
The EU recalls that, under all circumstances, the tenets of the rules-based order and the UN Charter must be respected. Members of the United Nations Security Council have a special duty to defend those standards, as a pillar of the international security architecture.
Mike Tapp, was doing an series of media appearances this morning and, when asked if Starmer was refusing to say the Maduro extradition broke international law because he was worried of antagonising Trump, Tapp replied:
Absolutely not. UK ministers is, and will, be in conversations 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 consulting with close allies looking at the juridical dimension of this.
But recently, in an interview on the BBC, the chair of the Commons foreign affairs committee (and a ex- 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 breach of international law, she said, because the PM was in government, he had to balance “a number of considerations”. But she was in a separate situation because she was not a government member, she said. She added:
In the end there is no getting away from it. This is not a legal action.
[Starmer] may well wish to hear what the justification is from the US administration. I can get in front of us and say I cannot think of anything that could be a proper justification.
Here is the schedule for the day.
10am: The Scottish first minister, gives a speech in Glasgow. The Scottish Labour leader, and Scottish Conservative leader, are also giving talks, at mid-morning and 1pm in turn. All the party heads are looking ahead to the Holyrood elections in May.
Morning: Keir Starmer is on a tour in Berkshire where he is due to make comments to the media.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
2.30pm: Shabana Mahmood, takes queries in the Commons.
After 3.30pm: The foreign secretary, is anticipated to give a statement to MPs about Venezuela.
