Hell in Kabul... as Raab told to quit
Foreign Sec blasted over refusal to help interpreters while on hols
DOMINIC Raab yesterday came under mounting pressure to quit after failing to make a phone call from his luxury Crete hotel to help desperate Afghans flee for their lives.
The Foreign Secretary was staying at a five-star hotel when officials suggested he “urgently” call Afghan foreign minister Hanif Atmar to discuss the fate of interpreters who had helped British forces.
The request came last Friday, two days before the Taliban marched on capital Kabul, sparking a scramble to leave.
Mr Raab was reportedly unavailable so Lord Goldsmith was left to step in.
But the Afghans are said to have refused to rearrange the call with a junior minister
The Foreign Office said Mr Raab had been “engaged on a range of calls”.
Asked yesterday if he was going to resign from the Cabinet he said: “No.”
It came after Tory former veterans minister Johnny Mercer compared his party to a “sh** company” where “everyone running it hasn’t got a clue”.
Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the SNP are demanding that Mr Raab resigns, or that Boris Johnson sacks him.
Labour leader Keir Starmer said: “Who wouldn’t make a phone call if they were told it could save somebody’s life?” Layla Moran, Lib Dem foreign affairs spokeswoman, said: “All the Foreign Secretary had to do was leave the beach and pick up the phone. He did not. He must go.”
SNP Westminster Leader Ian Blackford MP said he “must resign, or be sacked”.
Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, who has been critical of the Foreign Office’s role in the crisis, told Radio 4 a phone call “to an Afghan minister at that moment in time would have not made a difference”.
But Shadow Foreign Secretary Lisa Nandy said: “How can Boris Johnson allow the Foreign Secretary to continue in his role after another catastrophic
Who wouldn’t make a phone call if they were told it could save someone’s life? KEIR STARMER LABOUR LEADER ON RAAB
of judgment? If Dominic Raab doesn’t have the decency to resign, the Prime Minister must show a shred of leadership and sack him.”
Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner said: “He couldn’t even make one call? Why is he still in the job?”
Amid continuing chaos on the ground Mr Mercer called the UK’s withdrawal from Afghanistan a “total betrayal” and said it was a “copout” to blame US President Joe Biden.
Mr Mercer, who served three tours in Afghanistan, resigned as a defence minister earlier this year over the Government’s treatment of soldiers who served in Northern Ireland.
He told the Evening Standard: “The way ministers have carried on over the last week, without any real direction or leadership or responsi-failure bility, it just makes it ten times worse. Constantly blaming the Americans devalues our service even further.”
On Wednesday, Mr Johnson said the UK had secured the “safe return” of 306 UK nationals and 2,052 Afghan nationals as part of its resettlement programme – with a further 2,000 Afghan applications completed and more in process.
But amid claims some planes are leaving Afghanistan almost empty, Mr Wallace said the UK was using “every space possible” on its evacuation flights amid a “very difficult situation on the ground”.
He added UK troops would stay in Afghanistan “as long as United States forces are running the airport”.