JOHNSON HUMILIATED
PM condemned by both Labour & Tories over Afghan catastrophe
BORIS Johnson was humiliated as Tory MPs joined Labour to condemn his dire leadership on Afghanistan.
Taliban fighters are now using guns, whips and sticks to stop Afghans getting to Kabul airport, forcing flights to leave half-empty. Rapes and executions are also reported. Labour’s Keir Starmer said: “The PM bears a heavy responsibility.”
AN embattled Boris Johnson faced a barrage of criticism from MPs on all sides of the House over the humiliating failure of his Afghanistan policies.
As his own MPs blasted his lack of leadership, there was bloodshed in Kabul, with a woman and her child injured as Taliban fighters used gunfire, whips and sticks to control crowds near the airport.
The hard-liners’ action meant that many rescue flights were leaving the troubled city with only a handful of passengers aboard.
MPs had been recalled from the summer holidays for yesterday’s emergency debate and they condemned the Government over the fall-out from the withdrawal of Western troops from Afghanistan.
In one of Mr Johnson’s darkest days in Parliament, his predecessor Theresa May led the charge, saying the Prime Minister must be held “responsible for the consequences”.
She said: “This is a major setback for British foreign policy. We talk of Global Britain. Where is Global Britain on the streets of Kabul? Our foreign policy will be judged on our deeds not our words.”
DISASTROUS
Mrs May said it is “incomprehensible and worrying” that the UK was not able to bring together a solution between nations.
She said: “Was our intelligence really so poor? Was our understanding of the Afghan government so weak? Was our knowledge of the position on the ground so inadequate?
“Or did we just feel we had to follow the US and hope, on a wing and a prayer, that it would be all right on the night.”
Labour leader Keir Starmer attacked Mr Johnson’s “appalling” lack of leadership.
He said: “It has been a disastrous week, an unfolding tragedy. The lack of planning is unforgivable and the Prime Minister bears a heavy responsibility. He was in a position to lead but he didn’t.”
Mr Starmer slammed the
Government for failing to use the 18 months it had to prepare for the final Western pull-out.
He said: “The PM’s response to the Taliban at the gates of Kabul was to go on holiday.”
And turning on Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, who also went away, Mr Starmer said: “I wouldn’t have been on holiday when Kabul fell. You cannot co-ordinate an international response from the beach.”
The Prime Minister had told the Commons it was an “illusion” to think that Britain alone could have prevented the Taliban taking over.
He said the crisis had unfurled
“faster than even the Taliban expected”, effectively conceding ministers were caught off-guard.
But he then said: “It is not true to say that the UK Government was unprepared or did not foresee this.”
He also insisted Britain would honour its “enduring commitment” to Afghans, with the priority evacuating UK nationals and their allies.
Around 20,000 Afghan refugees will be given sanctuary in the UK in the next five years.
But the Home Office was accused of failing to act urgently after it revealed just 5,000 would be relocated in the first year.
The rattled PM was unable to say whether the remaining 15,000, forced to wait years for resettlement, should just “hang about and wait until they’ve been executed?”
Tory MPs lined up to criticise their Government’s failure.
Addressing a silent Commons, Tom Tugendhat, a former soldier who served in Afghanistan, said he had struggled through “anger, grief
and rage” over the past week, noting that he had previously watched “good men go into the earth, taking with them a part of me and a part of all of us”.
Mr Tugendhat, who also spent a year as an adviser to the governor of Helmand province, said: “Let’s stop talking about forever wars.
“Let’s recognise that forever peace is bought, not cheaply, but hard, through determination and a
This doesn’t need to be defeat but, at the moment, it
damn well feels like it
TOM TUGENDHAT TORY MP & AFGHANISTAN VETERAN
Did we feel we had to follow US and hope, on a wing & a prayer, it would
be all right?
THERESA MAY FORMER TORY PRIME MINISTER IN COMMONS YESTERDAY
will to endure. This doesn’t need to be defeat but, at the moment, it damn well feels like it.”
Ex-Army serviceman Tobias Ellwood, chair of the defence select committee, demanded an inquiry but was rebuffed by the PM.
Mr Ellwood said: “It is with utter disbelief seeing us make such an operational and strategic blunder by retreating at this time. I’m sorry there’s no vote here today as I believe the Government would not have the support of the House. The future is very much more unpredictable because of our actions.”
Former Northern Ireland Secretary Owen Paterson described the allied forces’ withdrawal as the “UK’s biggest humiliation since Suez” and America’s “biggest humiliation since Saigon”.
Tory MP and former soldier Johnny Mercer, who did three tours of
Afghanistan, accused Mr Johnson of “consistently failing” veterans struggling with mental health issues.
Mr Johnson claimed the UK would not send Afghan refugees who reached Britain back to Kabul.
But amid criticism of his brutal asylum policy, he said the UK would not allow desperate Afghans to arrive in an “indiscriminate way”, signalling they must get to refugee camps in neighbouring countries first. Earlier, the head of the armed forces warned the evacuation operation in Kabul is entering a “critical” phase.
General Sir Nick Carter, chief of the defence staff, said troops are working with the Taliban to ensure people can leave but warned of “a lot of challenges on the ground”.
The British ambassador to Afghanistan, Sir Laurie Bristow, who has chosen to stay in the country, said the UK has “days, not weeks” to get people out of the country.
Home Secretary Priti Patel defended Tory plans for the scheme to resettle vulnerable Afghans, claiming it is impossible to house 20,000 people “all in one go”.
But she hinted the scheme could be expanded to admit double the initial figure for the first year. She said: “There could be up to 10,000. We are expanding categories of people.”
Local councils across the country have pledged to re-home refugees.
FOR a PM who likes to pose as the new Winston Churchill, waffling Boris Johnson sounded like Neville Chamberlain.
His dangerous casualness and incompetence were ruthlessly exposed in Parliament over the loss of Afghanistan to the Taliban.
Speech after speech hammered Johnson’s failure of leadership – particularly the assessments of predecessor Theresa May and Tom Tugendhat, one of the soldier MPs who risked their lives fighting in the country.
A stranger watching on TV might have thought Labour’s Keir Starmer rather than Johnson was the nation’s leader, his tone that of a credible alternative Prime Minister.
The overwhelming judgment was that Johnson should have done better over Afghanistan. Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood, another ex-soldier, suggesting he’d have lost a vote in the House of Commons, was damning.
Afghanistan is once again in the grip of a brutal cult and the Prime Minister’s credibility is in tatters. Johnson’s abandonment of Afghans also leaves him severely weakened.