LABOUR was struggling to contain backbench opposition to its tacit backing for the US aggression against Venezuela after Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper failed to convince the Commons of the government’s position.

Labour, Liberal Democrat and independent left MPs queued up on Monday night to express opposition to the government’s refusal to acknowledge that the violent kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro and his wife breached international law.

Ms Cooper continued to insist that the cabinet backed international law but was totally tongue-tied when it came to characterising the outrage in Caracas.

Emily Thornberry, chair of the Commons foreign affairs committee set the tone, telling the Foreign Secretary ”if a large and powerful country abducts the leader of another, and tries to intimidate the smaller country to gain access to its resources this should be called out not just by Britain. 

“We should be calling it out for what it is — a breach of international law. It is not for the country breaking the law to say whether or not it has broken the law.”

Labour MP Steve Witherden told Ms Cooper that “President Trump has behaved like a member of a criminal gang —bombing Venezuela, a sovereign country; kidnapping its head of state and his family and killing many in the process.” 

He warned that “if we do not stand up to deviants and bullies like Trump, they will only be emboldened to repeat their illegal acts elsewhere.”

Jon Trickett said that Trump’s actions could not be supported “by any Labour government” and Richard Burgon warned that Sir Keir’s willingness “to ditch international law to appease Donald Trump” was a “cowardly, craven approach” dragging Britain’s “reputation through the dirt.”

Your Party’s Zarah Sultana asked Ms Cooper “if a foreign power accused the British Prime Minister of breaking its domestic law, bombed targets in the UK, killed dozens of British citizens and abducted the Prime Minister and his wife in the middle of the night, would the government be able to say that that was legal, or is international law something that applies only when Donald Trump says it can?”

In a powerful intervention independent MP Iqbal Mohamed said “American imperialist invasions have killed millions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria. From aiding, arming and abetting a genocide in Palestine, to now the invasion and abduction of a leader in Venezuela, for oil, minerals and gold, and to protect the petrodollar, this has nothing to do with democracy or narco-terrorism. 

“The list of gangsterish aggression continues unopposed. Has the global rules-based order now collapsed, or did it ever even exist for Western warmongering powers?” he asked.

Labour is left mourning the ruins of its beloved “rules-based international system,” which Health Secretary Wes Streeting acknowledged today was “disintegrating.”

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch was rejoicing, however, saying the kidnapping of Maduro had been “morally the right thing to do.”