Hello, I'm Sean Curran, and this is yesterday in Parliament from BBC Radio 4.

MPs returned to Westminster on Monday the 5th of January after the Christmas break,

and the Foreign Secretary, Yvette Cooper, spent more than two hours at the dispatch

box resisting calls to condemn the US military strikes against Venezuela. The festive break was

almost a distant memory by the time the Commons turned its attention to the US strikes on

Venezuela. We come to the first statement,

Foreign Secretary, Venezuela, Foreign Secretary.

The MPs who'd crowded into the chamber

had had to wait until a quarter past six in the evening

to hear Yvette Cooper.

The Prime Minister had set out his position hours earlier

when he said it was up to the US

to justify its seizure of the Venezuelan president, Nicholas Maduro.

Would the Foreign Secretary stray from that careful position?

In my discussions with Secretary Rubio, I raised the importance of complying with international law,

and we will continue to urge all partners to do so at every stage.

It is, of course, for the US to set out the legal basis for their actions.

Secia Stama had stayed away from the Commons to the disappointment of the Conservative leader

Kemi Badoek, who led the opposition response to the statement.

She called Nicholas Maduro a tyrant who'd abused

the Venezuelan people and said successive British governments had refused to recognise the legitimacy

of his regime. Foreign policy should serve our national interest. It should be about keeping Britain

...