Labour civil war continues as ‘weak and pathetic’ Starmer blasted over Venezuela strike | Politics | News
Furious Labor MPs attacked Sir Keir Starmer and accused the Prime Minister of being ‘weak and pathetic’ following his comments about Donald Trump’s military strikes on Venezuela, where socialist leader Nicolás Maduro has been dragged from power. A left-wing lawmaker condemned Maduro’s capture as “an illegal act of aggression” while a number of backbenchers attacked the dramatic US operation.
In a daring dawn raid, elite US special forces backed by more than 150 aircraft stormed Maduro’s compound in Caracas and overwhelmed Venezuelan air defenses in a blitzkrieg operation that lasted just hours. The dethroned leader and his wife, Cilia Flores, were kidnapped from their bedroom and loaded onto waiting helicopters before being flown to the USS Iwo Jima and transported to the United States. President Trump’s audacious “snatch” mission, which he personally supervised from his home in Mar-a-Lago, sent shockwaves across Latin America and exposed deep fissures in the ranks of the Labor Party. The Maduro regime has been condemned for horrific human rights violations, including widespread torture, extrajudicial killings by death squads, and sexual violence against women.
Speaking at an online rally hosted by union activist Louise Regan, far-left extremist Richard Burgon attacked the Prime Minister’s statement that Britain had “no tears over the end of his regime”, claiming Sir Keir had “green lighted” Trump’s military action.
The Leeds East MP fumed in an extraordinary tirade: “The Prime Minister should have responded to the illegal bombing and kidnapping carried out by Trump in the same way he would have 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” in Latin America.
The Socialist Campaign Group member accused Mr Trump of trying to turn Latin America into “nothing more than a US colony” and claimed “international law has been thrown aside for appeasement” Donald Trump“.
The reaction spread beyond the fringe rally. John McDonnell, Jeremy Corbyn’s former shadow chancellor and long-serving hard-Left MP, launched a scathing attack, claiming Sir Keir was turning Britain into a “Trump colony”.
Rally organizers claimed 1,000 supporters attended the event, insisting that Venezuelans have the right to “choose their own leaders” but did not address decades of fraudulent elections.
Leftist activists did not mention the mountain of evidence proving that Maduro has rigged every election in which he has participated. In 2024, the socialist dictator declared victory despite independent observers documenting systematic fraud that “effectively disenfranchised much of the immigrant 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, according to the US State Department, Maduro’s feared death squads (so-called “Special Operations Forces”) slaughtered at least 5,287 people in 2018 alone; Another 1,569 people were killed in mid-May 2019.
The damning State Department report branded Maduro a “dictator” guilty of “gross human rights violations,” including “systemic repression, torture, and intimidation.” UN investigation documented sickening allegations of torture chambers; Amnesty International claimed that the regime’s thugs even tortured children.
