Hero Minister tells Corbyn: ‘Ask your Venezuelan pal to stop the killing’
HERO Defence Minister Tobias Ellwood has told Jeremy Corbyn to phone his ‘friend’, Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, and tell him to stop the ‘beatings and killings’ following the country’s controversial elections.
Mr Ellwood, right, was praised for trying to save PC Keith Palmer, who was stabbed to death earlier this year in a terror attack outside Parliament.
He called on the Labour leader to take direct action. ‘Corbyn & the Venez Pres are FRIENDS,’ he tweeted. ‘Corbyn could CALL Maduro and ask him to STOP the beatings & killings. But he’s SILENT.’ Mr Ellwood’s intervention came as Mr Corbyn continued to resist calls to criticise socialist dictator Maduro after hundreds of political opponents in Venezuela were attacked or seized in a brutal crackdown. Those opposed to Mr Maduro have vowed to keep protesting after last weekend’s election, called to pick a new assembly which will rewrite the country’s constitution and potentially give the president unlimited power.
Mr Corbyn, who idolised Venezuela’s former socialist leader Hugo Chavez, refused to interrupt his holiday to speak out.
Ex-Royal Green Jackets Army officer Mr Ellwood, 50, said: ‘At the very moment when his intervention could help, the Labour leader chooses to sit on his hands. His silence will be seen as tacitly supporting the escalation of violence unfolding in Venezuela as his president friend seeks to cling to power.
‘Mr Corbyn has spent decades developing a network of confidants and relationships across the world with undesirable characters who do not fit well with Britain’s place in the world. For a man who aspires to the highest elected political office, Mr Corbyn’s inaction here shines a beacon of light on the dangerous socialist path he would like to lead Britain down.’
Maduro faces international outcry, with Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson branding his regime ‘evil’.