Venezuela

Debate between Yvette Cooper and Calvin Bailey

Monday 5th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Calvin Bailey (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

The Maduro Government had no democratic legitimacy, but a return to gunboat diplomacy and strongman-led spheres of influence is not in our national interest. The rules-based international order is not teetering but collapsing, and that is disastrous. However, we cannot just bemoan it; we must respond to that threat by building up the coherence of our own bloc: Europe. Does the Foreign Secretary agree that these developments demonstrate that the absolute priority must be not noises off, but deepening connections, hard and soft, with our own continent?

[Yvette Cooper]

We should strengthen our European partnerships, which is what we have been doing, and strengthen our investment in defence—again, that is what we are doing. The transatlantic partnership remains important. It is what we will discuss this week with the Americans, when discussing security guarantees for Ukraine. The security guarantees we have been discussing, which involve the US, are also about the security of Europe, Ukraine and the UK, and, ultimately, about the upholding of international law.