UK Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has said the recent US military action in Venezuela was morally justified, even though she questioned its legal basis of the action.
Badenoch made the remarks during interviews with the BBC, where she said she did not fully understand the legal framework underpinning former US President Donald Trump’s operation to remove Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from power.
However, she argued that Maduro presided over a repressive government and welcomed his removal.
“Where the legal certainty is not yet clear, morally, I do think it was the right thing to do,” Badenoch said on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
She described the US intervention as “extraordinary” but said she understood the rationale behind it, given the nature of Maduro’s leadership.
“He was overseeing a brutal regime, and I’m glad he’s gone,” she added.
Badenoch also acknowledged that the action posed broader implications for global norms. According to her, the intervention “does raise serious questions about the rules-based order,” particularly around how international law is interpreted and enforced.
The UK government has so far stopped short of criticising the US move or stating whether it breached international law. Instead, officials have maintained that Maduro was an “illegitimate president.”
In contrast, several Labour MPs and opposition parties, including the Liberal Democrats, the Green Party and the Scottish National Party, have called on the government to formally condemn the action and describe it as illegal.
Drawing on her personal history, Badenoch said her perspective was shaped by growing up under military rule.
“I grew up under a military dictatorship, so I know what it’s like to have someone like Maduro in charge,” she said, referencing her childhood in Nigeria before moving to the UK at the age of 16.
However, the Conservative leader stressed that US intervention should not be applied universally. She said it was appropriate to caution Trump against intervening in Greenland, arguing that democratic states should be treated differently.
“There is a big difference between democratic states and the gangster state in Venezuela,” Badenoch said, adding: “What happens in Greenland is up to Denmark and the people of Greenland.”
