The pro-Chavez cabal at the heart of the British left threw their full support behind President Maduro’s socialist tyranny when he took over Venezuela in 2013. Owen Jones, Seumus Milne, Diane Abbott and even Jeremy Corbyn all piled in to support the regime, with Corbyn’s spin doctor Seamus Milne declaring “Venezuela and its progressive allies in Latin America matter to the rest of the world… because they have demonstrated that there are multiple social and economic alternatives to the failed neoliberal system that still has the west and its allies in its grip.” So where do they stand on Maduro now…

Neither Jones nor Milne have mentioned Venezuela on Twitter in a year, while Abbott and Corbyn have remained silent now for three. The failed Maduro regime, now falling apart, was always going to be the tyrannical logical conclusion of Chavez’s policies that these left-wingers ardently advocated at home and abroad. Shortages, hyper-inflation, riots, the regime’s continued crackdown on opposing voices and recent threats to nationalise private industries as a way to “radicalise the revolution“ show all the hallmarks of a desperate regime on the verge of collapse. The Corbynista “economic alternative” model has failed spectacularly in Venezeula…