Johnson should apologise to troops and families over Afghanistan, says Tory MP
A Conservative MP has called for Boris Johnson to apologise to the families of people who died in Afghanistan.
John Baron, MP for Basildon and Billericay, has joined other politicians in criticising the UK Government as remaining UK nationals and their local allies try to flee the country following the collapse of Western-backed authorities.
Mr Baron, who said he was the only Tory MP to oppose intervention in Afghanistan and voted against it in 2010, has been consistently critical of the campaign.
He said: “The fundamental error was allowing the initial limited and successful mission of expelling al Qaida from Afghanistan in 2001 to morph into the much wider mission of nation-building in the following years, which meant we had to take on the Taliban.
“This wider mission was born of ignorance, was unrealistic in its aims, poorly executed and thoroughly under-resourced – even the withdrawal is a shambles.
“Our intervention now brings its responsibilities. In addition to getting our nationals out safely, the international community must now stand by those fleeing the country in fear of their lives, including those who helped British forces.
“As a country, we need to do our bit to reach out and welcome the refugees and asylum-seekers. The priority now is to save lives.
“On behalf of previous Governments, the Prime Minister should apologise to the bereaved families of service personnel, and to those personnel who are still paying the price for this folly.
“We also need to examine the lessons from yet another foolhardy intervention – for example, while always maintaining our guard against terrorism, it has distracted us from the bigger threat of hostile nation states.”
He was joined in his condemnation by former defence minister Tobias Ellwood, the Tory MP for Bournemouth East.
Mr Ellwood described chaotic scenes at Kabul airport – as people tried to flee the country – as “Saigon 2.0”, referencing evacuations in 1975 as the North Vietnamese army captured the city and ended the Vietnam War.
Mr Ellwood, a former British Army captain and current chairman of the Defence Select Committee, tweeted: “Chaotic exodus from Kabul airport. Apaches (helicopters) used to clear the runway.
“If this is not Saigon 2.0 I don’t know what is. Is this how we thought we’d depart Afghanistan? I repeat my call for a UK inquiry.”
Tory MP and former defence minister Johnny Mercer, who served in Afghanistan, tweeted that ministers need to “take responsibility” and Afghanistan “deserved better than the nil response this weekend”.
Pressure has been mounting on the UK Government over the withdrawal of troops from the country, and Parliament will be recalled on Wednesday so MPs can discuss the crisis.
Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said: “We will do everything we can to bring as many people out as possible.”
He acknowledged the Taliban “are in control” of Afghanistan, and there is a sense of sadness at the recent events.
He told Sky News: “I think we all saw that and felt a real sense of sadness that, first of all, the forces that the British and the international community had invested in had melted away in some areas so quickly.
“You don’t fix things overnight in global issues, you have to manage them… when that deal was done a few years ago, what happened was ultimately we undermined the community – the deal undermined the Afghan government and left it in a place that ultimately saw the end… the river flows fastest towards the end and that is what we saw yesterday and it’s what we’re seeing in our pictures today.
“My job as Defence Secretary is to make sure that we protect not only the UK nationals, but those Afghans we have an obligation to, that is actually why we’re in the country.
“For the last few weeks we’ve been in the country solely to process those people and to make sure we protect our officials doing that job and we’ll continue to do so.”
