Furious Labour MPs have branded Keir Starmer ‘weak and pathetic’ over his statements on Trump’s Venezuela attack.
Starmer faces backlash over Venezuela (Image: Getty)
Furious Labour MPs have turned on Sir Keir Starmer, blasting the Prime Minister as ‘weak and pathetic’ after his statements on Donald Trump’s military strikes on Venezuela that saw socialist leader Nicolás Maduro dragged from power. A string of backbench rebels hit out at the dramatic US operation, with one Left-wing MP condemning Maduro’s capture as an “illegal act of aggression”.
In a daring dawn raid, elite US special forces, supported by more than 150 aircraft stormed Maduro’s compound in Caracas, overwhelming Venezuelan air defences in a lightning operation that took just hours. The deposed leader and his wife, Cilia Flores, were seized from their bedroom and bundled onto waiting helicopters before being flown to the USS Iwo Jima and transported to America. The audacious “snatch and grab” mission – personally overseen by President Trump from his Mar-a-Lago residence – has sent shockwaves through Latin America and exposed deep rifts within Labour’s ranks. Maduro’s regime has been condemned for horrific human rights abuses, including widespread torture, extrajudicial killings by death squads and sexual violence against women.
Speaking at an online rally hosted by union activist Louise Regan, hard-Left backbencher Richard Burgon claimed Sir Keir “gave the green light” to Trump’s military action, attacking the Prime Minister’s statement that Britain “shed no tears about the end of his regime”.
In an extraordinary tirade, the Leeds East MP raged: “The Prime Minister should have responded to an illegal bombing and kidnapping by Trump in exactly the way he would have done if Putin had carried it out.”
Mr Burgon accused President Trump of “naked colonialism” and claimed the operation was designed to install “far-right governments” across Latin America.
The Socialist Campaign Group member accused Mr Trump of trying to turn Latin America into “nothing more than a US colony”, claiming “international law has been cast aside to appease Donald Trump“.
The backlash spread beyond the fringe rally. John McDonnell – Jeremy Corbyn’s former shadow chancellor and a long-time hard-Left MP – launched a scathing attack, claiming Sir Keir had turned Britain into a “Trump colony”.
Rally organisers claimed 1,000 supporters joined the event, insisting Venezuelans had the right to “choose their own leaders” – but did not address decades of rigged elections.
The Left-wing activists made no mention of the mountain of evidence proving Maduro rigged every election he contested. In 2024 the socialist strongman claimed victory despite independent monitors documenting systematic fraud that “effectively disenfranchised most of the migrant population”, according to the respected Carter Center.
Armed government thugs lined up outside polling stations to intimidate terrified voters in 2024, 2018 and 2012. Meanwhile, Maduro’s feared death squads – the so-called “Special Action Forces” – slaughtered at least 5,287 people in 2018 alone, with another 1,569 murdered by mid-May 2019, according to the US State Department.
The damning State Department report branded Maduro a “dictator” guilty of “gross violations of human rights” including “systemic repression, torture and intimidation”. A UN investigation documented stomach-churning allegations of torture chambers, while Amnesty International alleged the regime’s thugs had even tortured children.
