Statement of SolidarioGB, September 24, 2026

Against imperialist siege. For the sovereignty of Venezuela.

Demonstration outside Downing Street, London

We address you from England to express our militant solidarity with the Venezuelan people, who are facing an unprecedented imperialist aggression by the United States and its allies. We recognise in the British solidarity campaign - led by Venezuela Solidarity Campaign, Stop the War and Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament - a necessary front in the imperial metropolis that must be strengthened and radicalised.

The attack is real and it has a name

On January 3, 2026, US special forces bombed Caracas, murdered more than a hundred people and kidnapped President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores in order to subject them to a show trial on US territory. Since then, the British government of Andy Burnham has kept a complicit silence, refusing to condemn a flagrant violation of international law and acting, in the words of the protesters outside Downing Street, as a "vassal state" of Washington.

British complicity is not rhetorical: it is material

While the United Kingdom proclaims itself a defender of the international order, the Bank of England illegally sends more than 30 tonnes of Venezuelan gold, valued at £3.5 billion, refusing to return it to the people to whom it belongs, and instead hands it over to the US.

More than 14,000 people signed the petition promoted by VSC demanding that the former prime minister, Starmer, return the gold; MPs such as Richard Burgon, Diane Abbott and John McDonnell publicly backed the demand. This theft of the gold constitutes an act of economic war that worsens the suffering of the Venezuelan people and must cease immediately.

The principal contradiction is clear

It is not Venezuelan against Venezuelan. The greater contradiction is Venezuela against the imperial bloc that seeks to control it, plunder it and subjugate it. Those who feel legitimate rage at the blockade, the sanctions -more than 1,000 coercive measures that have devastated the economy and the life of the people- and the military aggression must understand that this rage cannot be directed against the victim. Rage without the correct direction is self-destruction; well-directed rage is a liberating force.

We demand:

* An immediate end to all military intervention and imperialist pressure against Venezuela.
* The unconditional lifting of all sanctions and unilateral coercive measures that punish the Venezuelan people.
* The immediate return of the Venezuelan gold illegally withheld.
* An explicit condemnation by the British government of the US aggression and a break with the policy of subordination to Washington.
* Absolute respect for the sovereignty and the right of the Venezuelan people to determine their own future without external interference.
* The withdrawal of all Yankee and Zionist troops, and foreign intelligence agencies, from Venezuelan territory.

We call for:

• "The unity of all those who reject external aggression, beyond internal differences, because the defence of Venezuela does not need a single voice but many voices aimed at the same aggressor.
• "Active and organised international solidarity, linking the struggle for Venezuela with the struggles against colonialism in Palestine, Ukraine and all subjected peoples.
• Rage to be directed against the blockade, not against the people; against the plunder, not against those who suffer its consequences.
• If we are going to be angry, let us be angry with those who blockade. With those who plunder. With those who invade. Not with those who suffer the consequences.

Venezuela defends itself. Venezuela resists. Venezuela will overcome.

(SolidarioGB is a member of the British Chapter of Antifascist International)

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