Venezuela

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Monday 5th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Member makes an important, thoughtful point about the way in which frameworks need to work, but he is also right that there needs to be the transition to democracy at the earliest opportunity. The first stages of that are ensuring that there is stability, and then the release of the political prisoners and the return of political opposition members to Venezuela, because it is not possible to fight a free and fair election while there is still political repression in place.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

I have to say that this is one of the most depressing days I have spent in this Chamber in the past few years, because while I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s commitment to democracy in Venezuela and her repeated commitment to the rules-based international system and our alliances, I cannot bring that together with this Government’s abject failure to condemn the actions of Donald Trump in breaking international law and the concern it has created, reflected in statements by the leaders of Greenland, Denmark, Sweden and the Foreign Secretary herself at the Dispatch Box. How are the Government going to reconcile that blatant contradiction?

[Yvette Cooper]

I set out already our clear position on Greenland and the importance of international law, but also the importance of working through our different alliances and being prepared to raise issues around international law and other areas both privately and publicly. We need to ensure we can pursue the UK’s interests and also our values. We do that through the discussions that will be taking place this week on Ukraine and through the pursuit of democracy and our values in Venezuela as well.