Neil Coyle left Dominic Raab squirming last week as MPs grilled the foreign secretary on the UK’s shambolic exit from Afghanistan.
Raab, who had been on holiday in Greece as Kabul fell, admitted under questioning from the Bermondsey and Old Southwark MP that Afghan British Embassy guards had not made it to the safety of the UK.
In one cringeworthy exchange during the foreign affairs select committee meeting, Raab was left telling Coyle “you can browbeat me all you like” after the Bermondsey and Old Southwark MP chastised him for attempting to evade his question on how many had been rescued. “Can you tell us today whether the Afghan guards at the British Embassy in Kabul have been evacuated or not? They were held up due to paperwork problems. Are they here?” Coyle demanded.
Attempting to dodge the paperwork issue, Raab claimed that arranged transport for those the government aimed to rescue had been turned back at checkpoints before reaching Kabul airport. Although he did elaborate on numbers, he admitted that the government had wanted to rescue ‘some’ of the staff. It has since been reported that just one of 25 workers, employed by contractors, made it to the UK after being promised help.
Although the foreign secretary has blamed failures in intelligence for how the insurgents blindsided the UK and the USA governments, at the select committee meeting chair Tom Tugendhat – a lieutenant colonel and Afghan war veteran – referenced a foreign office report from July this year warning of the Taliban’s ‘rapid advances’ across the country.
Meanwhile, Southwark MPs said the shambles had continued as they attempted to help desperate families waiting for news from loved ones. Around eighty members of Southwark’s Afghan community had come together in the final days of the evacuation at the end of August for prayer and support at a vigil held at Camberwell’s St Giles Church, hosted by Dulwich and West Norwood MP Helen Hayes, Southwark Council deputy leader Jasmine Ali and councillor Alice Macdonald.
Macdonald, who is cabinet member for equalities, neighbourhoods and leisure, said: “I, like many others, have watched the horrifying situation in Afghanistan unfolding and have been desperate to help.
“We are committed to being a borough of sanctuary and will do everything we can to support Afghan refugees to settle into this country and to meet their immediate and ongoing needs.
“We are in contact with the Home Office and stand ready to accommodate refugees in our borough. We are also asking the Home Office for more clarity on the details of the government’s resettlement scheme so we can provide the support needed.
“We are proud to see the amazing response in Southwark from NHS colleagues, the voluntary sector and many other organisations and individuals who are providing much needed care and compassion.”
Hayes said her team had been working ‘flat out’ to try to get people out of Kabul in the run up to the deadline, but delays and lack of support from the government had left her fearing for their safety. Constituents with family trapped in the country include one family with a ‘very sick child’, ‘people hiding in fear for their lives’ and ‘women who can’t leave home under the Taliban without a male escort’. She described their testimonies of what is happening in the country as ‘chilling and heartbreaking’.
During Monday’s parliamentary debate on Afghanistan, Hayes asked the prime minister: “Many of my constituents have family members in Afghanistan who could be eligible for asylum in the UK under more than one route—for example, by ARAP [Afghans relocations and assistance policy], under the Foreign Office special cases criteria, or under family reunion.
“Yet there is currently no coordination between departments. My constituents are being passed from pillar to post. ARAP is refusing cases where there may be an alternative route, and the foreign secretary and the home secretary are not replying to their emails.
“When will the prime minister sort out this lack of coordination across his government?”
Boris Johnson told MPs in response: “I must reject that in the strongest possible terms.
“The house has paid tribute, quite rightly, to the work of the armed services over the last few weeks and months, but it should also pay tribute to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s rapid reaction team who went to Afghanistan, and to the Border Force officials who went out there, who worked hand in glove to help thousands of people come to this country in safety.”
Meanwhile, Camberwell and Peckham MP Harriet Harman has said out of 41 people in her constituency who applied to the government for 275 relatives to be brought to the UK, only one person has been able to escape so far.
During Monday’s debate she warned that unless the government upped its current cap of 5,000 people eligible for the Afghan citizen resettlement scheme it would become a ‘lottery of life and death’ for those who – despite not working directly for the UK government – were still at risk of reprisals.
Raab replied: “The number of people who flee Afghanistan is going to outstrip what the UK would be able to take alone,” saying the government was looking “very carefully” at the criteria and would be aiming to encourage other countries to do their bit.