Jeremy Corbyn’s silence on Venezuela speaks volumes

Jeremy Corbyn’s reluctance to condemn the president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, shows just how weak and mealy-mouthed he is. The Labour leader was asked in an interview with Channel 4’s Jon Snow to speak out against Maduro. Once again, Corbyn turned down his chance to do so. He said he deplored ‘abuses of human rights and free speech by anyone’ but he was silent on what he thought of opposition leaders being rounded up and protesters shot. He also stopped short of telling the thugs who run the country to start abiding by the 1999 constitution that Maduro’s beloved predecessor, Hugo Chavez, spearheaded.

Nothing seems to rattle Corbyn quite like Venezuela (in a short segment, he told Snow to ‘look’ twice). Perhaps this is because his effusive praise in the past is now coming back to haunt him. In 2013, he said:

‘Chavez showed us that there is a different and better way of doing things.