{"id":4740,"date":"2026-01-05T16:51:32","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T16:51:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/?p=4740"},"modified":"2026-02-18T10:27:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T10:27:11","slug":"venezuela","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/?p=4740","title":{"rendered":"Venezuela"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-post\" data-elementor-id=\"4740\" class=\"elementor elementor-4740\" data-elementor-post-type=\"post\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-25279563 e-flex e-con-boxed e-con e-parent\" data-id=\"25279563\" data-element_type=\"container\" data-e-type=\"container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"e-con-inner\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-491d0b86 elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"491d0b86\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n<p><strong>John Whittingdale\u00a0Conservative, Maldon<\/strong><\/p>\n\n<p>The Maduro and Ch\u00e1vez regime was characterised by widespread human rights abuse, criminality and economic destitution, and many Venezuelans are rightly and understandably celebrating its end. However, I have to say to the Foreign Secretary that after more than half an hour, it is still not clear whether the UK Government actually agree with what has been done. She referred to the discussion taking place at the UN Security Council at the moment\u2014can she say what the UK\u2019s position will be at that meeting?<\/p>\n\n<p><strong>Yvette Cooper\u00a0Foreign Secretary, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office<\/strong><\/p>\n\n<p>I set out our position at the beginning of the statement: we have long supported a peaceful transition from an authoritarian regime to a democracy. We shed no tears for the removal of Maduro, but we want a peaceful transition to the establishment of a democracy, which we do not yet have in Venezuela. That is what we will work towards. We will always argue for the upholding of international law.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-35c45dc elementor-widget elementor-widget-video\" data-id=\"35c45dc\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-settings=\"{&quot;youtube_url&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/youtu.be\\\/ehWIL7CNaYA&quot;,&quot;video_type&quot;:&quot;youtube&quot;,&quot;controls&quot;:&quot;yes&quot;}\" data-widget_type=\"video.default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-wrapper elementor-open-inline\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-video\"><\/div>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Parliamentary question pressing the Government to clarify the UK\u2019s position following the fall of the Maduro regime, supporting democratic transition while emphasising respect for international law and stability in Venezuela.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4741,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"elementor_header_footer","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-speeches"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4740"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5504,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4740\/revisions\/5504"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}