THIS doesn’t end here. Unless the United States faces consequences for what it is doing in Venezuela it will do it, or try to, again and again.

It says so itself — one reason Keir Starmer, Friedrich Merz, Emmanuel Macron and other Trump appeasers appear so ridiculous.

When Trump in his first term blurted out that US forces were in Syria “only for the oil,” his allies’ embarrassment could be glossed over by a media unwilling to expose years of its own propaganda about humanitarian interventions and counter-terror operations.

Not now. Trump kidnaps a head of state and then announces Washington will “run” his country.

What does that mean? Well, what remains of the Venezuelan government must grant Washington “total access. We need access to the oil and to other things in their country.” What if Venezuela’s Vice-President Delcy Rodriguez won’t do as she’s told? She’ll face “a situation worse than Maduro.” Maybe killed in the kidnapping operation, like the 32 brave Cuban soldiers who died defending her boss.

The Trump White House narrative is in our faces every day. Who can take seriously Merz’s call for an explanation on how US actions are justified in international law, when Secretary for War Pete Hegseth vows to pursue “maximum lethality not tepid legality?” The politicians of the old Washington Consensus merely look pathetic through their “hear no evil, see no evil” approach to the new one.

Hence the backlash against Starmer’s feeble fence-sitting, involving MPs well beyond the socialist left (such as Emily Thornberry), the TUC and the rapidly growing Greens.

There are half-hearted efforts to depict Venezuela as a special case. But again the Trump White House’s loudmouth assertions undermine the pretence.

Attacking Colombia and removing its elected president “sounds good to me,” says Trump. Cuba’s government is “going down.” The US “has to do something with Mexico,” “needs Greenland, absolutely.”

All the above are in the western hemisphere. Some read in the new US National Security Strategy a retreat from global hegemony and a carve-up of the world into spheres of influence. Trump’s relative coolness on preventing Russian victory over Ukraine is sometimes cited.

But that downplays sections of the document on building the US military presence across Asia and its expanding “out of hemisphere” military footprint, stationing nuclear-capable bombers in Suffolk or bombing Nigeria on Christmas Day. Hegseth hints a decision to intervene in Iran may have already been taken, saying Maduro “had his chance, just like Iran had their chance until they didn’t and he didn’t.”

Trump is certainly a response to declining US economic power: but hardly seems reconciled to a more modest future. US exceptionalism, its right to dictate to other countries and attack them, is more nakedly asserted than before, and over just as wide a field.

That makes the protest movement in Britain especially important. Britain may not have been involved in the Venezuela coup.

But our bases host US troops that can be sent to kill, US planes that can be sent to bomb. The RAF bases on Cyprus have already played a shameful role in supplying the Israeli genocide in Gaza.

Our military command structure is subordinated to the US through Nato, our intelligence services through the Five Eyes. We are routinely complicit in facilitating US crimes — in an era where they’re coming thick and fast.

Demand a breach with Trump. US bases out of Britain. No to the thieving “trade deals.” No to the joint military exercises. Withdrawal from Nato and a realignment towards multilateralism, the United Nations and international law.

Trump is so offensive that these demands can reach a mass audience. They can hasten Starmer’s exit from Downing Street and shape the context in which his successor emerges.

Solidarity with all those struggling to keep Venezuela free and independent, and all those fighting to stop Trump doing it again.