The UK government is facing mounting questions over its handling of the Afghanistan conflict, which is being labelled as one of the country’s biggest foreign policy disasters since the 1956 Suez crisis.
Tom Tugendhat, the chairman of the foreign affairs select committee, criticised the UK for its “abject failure” over Afghanistan.
Writing for The Times, Tugendhat said the UK was “incapable of holding a separate line to the USA”.
The Conservative MP also accused the government of “abandoning the Afghan people”.
Defence secretary Ben Wallace blamed the previous American administration for the situation, telling BBC Breakfast that “the Donald Trump deal got us to where we are today.”
Later, speaking on LBC, Wallace – a former soldier and captain in the army during the 1990s – was overcome with emotion, breaking down live on air as he admitted that “some people won’t get back” from Afghanistan.
The Taliban has rapidly seized control of the country, nearly 20 years after being driven from power by American-led allied forces.
Afghan president Ashraf Ghani fled on Sunday night after the Taliban reached the capital, Kabul.
Many Afghani people who worked for the allied forces, including the British army, now fear for their lives.
Over the weekend, Boris Johnson chaired an emergency COBRA meeting as the situation in Afghanistan unravelled. The government says it expects to get over 1,000 people a day back to the UK and has sent 600 troops to help with the evacuation.
Parliament will be recalled from its summer recess on Wednesday for one day to debate the situation in Afghanistan. Protests are expected in Parliament Square on the same day to coincide with the debate.
Labour’s shadow home secretary, Nicholas Thomas-Symonds, has written to Priti Patel, urging Britain to “live up to our obligations, especially to those Afghan people who worked so bravely with British representatives in Afghanistan.
As the Western world watches on in dismay at the conclusion of a two decades long presence in Afghanistan, the country’s population is facing the reality of a return to the repressive Taliban regime of the 1990s.
