Welcome back. Before Christmas, the Labour leader had intended to use the initial days back after the parliamentary break to highlight government actions to reduce the living expenses. He set out this argument yesterday in a piece where he cited measures including proposals to reduce utility costs. Unfortunately, his economic PR blitz has been overshadowed of the news agenda by Donald Trump, and his entirely different approach to guaranteeing supporters get access to cheap energy.
No one in British political life appears particularly eager on embracing the Trump approach – which is probably a positive development for Norway.
But there is an intense debate ongoing about what the UK government should be willing to say about Trump’s decision to extradite the Venezuelan president, and replace him with someone expected to be more cooperative with American interests, particularly in regarding the nation's petroleum sector.
The Prime Minister has declined to criticise the American intervention, and the government has dodged questions about whether or not it considered what happened as lawful. Recently, all EU states except one nation issued a collective declaration which, while not overtly critical, did stress the importance of global rules, and by implication accuse Trump of disregarding it. It said:
The European Union urge restraint and restraint by all actors, to prevent escalation and to ensure a peaceful solution to the crisis.
The EU recalls that, under all circumstances, the tenets of the rules-based order and the UN Charter must be respected. Permanent members of the United Nations Security Council have a special duty to defend those standards, as a cornerstone of the international security architecture.
Mike Tapp, was conducting an interview round this morning and, when asked if Starmer was declining to say the Maduro extradition violated international law because he was afraid of antagonising Trump, Tapp responded:
Not at all. UK ministers are and will remain in conversations with the US administration. And it’s for the United States to lay out the juridical rationale for the steps that they’ve undertaken. And we’re also talking with close allies examining the juridical dimension of this.
But recently, in an interview on the BBC, Emily Thornberry (and a former shadow attorney general), said she was very concerned about the way Trump seems to think, like Russia’s Vladimir Putin and the Chinese president, that he could do what he wanted in his area of control.
Asked about Starmer declining to say that Trump was in violation of international law, Thornberry said, because the PM was in government, he had to balance “multiple factors”. But she was in a separate situation because she was not a minister, she said. She went on:
Ultimately there is no getting away from it. This is not a legal action.
[Starmer] may well wish to listen to what the reasoning is from the American government. I can get in front of us and say I cannot think of anything that could be a proper justification.
Here is the agenda for the day.
10am: John Swinney, gives a speech in Glasgow. The Scottish Labour leader, and Scottish Tory leader, are also giving speeches, at mid-morning and 1pm respectively. All the party heads are gearing up to the Holyrood elections in May.
Morning: Keir Starmer is on a tour in Berkshire where he is scheduled to speak to the press.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a press briefing.
2.30pm: Shabana Mahmood, takes questions in the Commons.
After 3.30pm: Yvette Cooper, is anticipated to give a update to MPs about the ongoing situation.
