{"id":88942,"date":"2026-01-05T12:30:27","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T12:30:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=88942"},"modified":"2026-01-05T12:30:27","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T12:30:27","slug":"venezuela-and-the-warning-to-britain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2026\/01\/05\/venezuela-and-the-warning-to-britain\/","title":{"rendered":"Venezuela and the Warning to Britain"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We have just issued this YouTube short, recorded in the snow this morning:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Venezuela and the Warning to Britain\" width=\"422\" height=\"750\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ykRaMQoKHgo?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The transcript is:<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>If you want to understand Britain's future, look at how Trump is dealing with Venezuela.<\/p>\n<p>It's ceased to be a country. It's just an asset. It's an oil field. It's there to be exploited. It's democracy, it's statehood, power, all of them are subject to US control as far as he's concerned.<\/p>\n<p>This is a different worldview. It is imperialism. It is all colonialism revived.<\/p>\n<p>And now, where do we stand in the world here in the UK? Let's just be realistic for a moment. We have no real influence. We gave up our influence in Europe, which was enormous, by leaving the European Union. We are now just in the orbit of the USA. We have no control there. We have no power. We are subject entirely to their whim. What does that mean? We are capable of exploitation and control just as Venezuela is. Everything is tilted in the US's favour.<\/p>\n<p>Trade deals, defence deals, everything literally is about what they want, and nothing is about what we want.<\/p>\n<p>Where does that leave us? With a massive decision to make. Who are we going to align with in the future? Is it the USA? Are we just going to become their aircraft carrier near Europe? The Trojan horse that they have to influence European policy in US favour. Or are we going to choose to align with Europe? Are we going to reassert our democratic power? Are we going to take control? Are we going to find our own allies as we did in the past? Are we going to take back control?<\/p>\n<p>That's the choice we have to make, and it's one that has to be taken very soon, and Keir Starmer either has to make it or go and let someone else make it on our behalf.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><b>Comments\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<p>When commenting, please take note of this blog\u2019s comment policy,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/about\/comments\/\">which is available here<\/a>. Contravening this policy will result in comments being deleted before or after initial publication at the editor\u2019s sole discretion and without explanation being required or offered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We have just issued this YouTube short, recorded in the snow this morning: The transcript is: If you want to understand Britain&#8217;s future, look at<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2026\/01\/05\/venezuela-and-the-warning-to-britain\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,118,106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-labour","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88942"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88942\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88944,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88942\/revisions\/88944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}