{"id":351789,"date":"2026-01-04T14:36:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T14:36:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/351789\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T14:36:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T14:36:11","slug":"venezuela-transition-should-be-reached-quickly-uk-minister-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/351789\/","title":{"rendered":"Venezuela transition should be reached \u2018quickly\u2019, UK minister says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister Darren Jones declined to say whether he thought the US strikes on Caracas had been legal, insisting it was for \u201cinternational courts\u201d to judge what fell within the law.<\/p>\n

The UK, which has a historically deep intelligence-sharing relationship with the US, was not informed of the attack before it was carried out overnight in Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first thing to say is it was an American operation. The United Kingdom was not involved in any way,\u201d Mr Jones told Sky News\u2019 Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips programme.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were not informed of it beforehand. So it\u2019s not for us to judge whether it\u2019s been a success or not. That\u2019s for the Americans to speak to.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Cabinet Office minister and close ally of Sir Keir Starmer added: \u201cI think the important thing now, given the events that have unfolded over the last 48 hours, is that we are\u00a0quickly\u00a0able to get to a point where we can get to a peaceful transition to a president in Venezuela that has the support of the people of Venezuela.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking to reporters on Saturday, the US president said Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, had been flown out of Caracas and indicted on \u201cnarco-terrorism\u201d charges following the attack.<\/p>\n

America will \u201crun\u201d the country until \u201ca safe, proper and judicious transition\u201d transfer of power can take place, Mr Trump claimed.<\/p>\n

He also revealed his plans to exploit the leadership vacuum to \u201cfix\u201d the nation\u2019s oil infrastructure, and sell \u201clarge amounts\u201d of the fuel to other nations.<\/p>\n

The action, which has been described as the most assertive US intervention to achieve regime change since the 2003 Iraq invasion, followed months of pressure from Washington on the country and its autocratic leader.<\/p>\n

Mr Maduro has now landed in New York while Mr Trump claimed the American presence in Venezuela was already in place, though there were no immediate signs that the US was running the country, according to the Associated Press.<\/p>\n

\"CabinetDarren Jones said the situation in Venezuela should \u2018quickly\u2019 reach a point where a peaceful transition can be made (Gareth Fuller\/PA)<\/p>\n

Mr Jones said the UK Government was \u201cnot entirely clear\u201d on what Mr Trump meant when he said America would run the nation, but insisted it was not for a \u201cthird country\u201d to decide on its future government.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s for the Americans now and for Venezuela to set out what happens in the coming days,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Sir Keir has resisted calls from within his own party, as well as some opposition critics, to take a tougher stance on the US president, arguing that maintaining a close relationship with America is critical for security and defence.<\/p>\n

Asked whether he would condemn the military action on Saturday, he said he wanted to wait to \u201cestablish the facts\u201d and speak to Mr Trump, and later insisted the UK will \u201cshed no tears\u201d over the end of Mr Maduro\u2019s regime.<\/p>\n

\"SundaySir Keir Starmer has backed a transition of power in Venezuela (Jeff Overs\/BBC)<\/p>\n

In an interview with the BBC\u2019s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme, the Prime Minister conceded there were \u201cdifferences of views on various things\u201d between him and the US leader \u2013 without naming specific issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do have differences of views on various things, but on the other hand, I constantly remind myself that 24\/7 our defence, our security and our intelligence relationship with the US matters probably more than any other relationship we\u2019ve got in the world, and it would not be in our national interest to weaken that in any way,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, it doesn\u2019t mean I agree with President Trump on everything he says and does, any more than he would agree with everything that I say or do, and we openly accept that that\u2019s the nature of the relationship we have.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we have made the relationship work. We do get along with each other and have the ability to spend time, one-to-one discussion, with world issues, and that is to the benefit the UK.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister Darren Jones declined to say whether he thought the US strikes on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":351790,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-351789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=351789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351789\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}