Afghanistan

Alicia Kearns Excerpts

Wednesday 18th August 2021 Commons Chamber

[Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) (Con)]

It has been said that there are decades when nothing happens and weeks when decades pass. What we are seeing in Afghanistan this week is decades, and they will shape the rest of my lifetime and that of many in this Chamber. This was a wholly preventable tragedy, and I and many colleagues around me are so very, very angry.

Our Government called for NATO allies to help us build a new coalition in Afghanistan to prevent the Taliban recapturing it, and we were let down. Only Turkey was willing to stand alongside us because they know what a failed state looks like. They have seen the refugees they support; they have seen the terrorists on their doorstep; they have seen the conflict and the suffering. It is bitterly disappointing and there is much we must learn from this. The UK could not have saved all those lives on our own. Multilateral collective responsibility should mean something, but I believe that too often today, it does not.

I have spent the last few days listening to our veterans, many of whom live in Rutland and Melton. I say to them now: many of us in this place will never truly understand the scars you carry, and we will never understand all you encountered, but all of you left me with one request—get the people out. That is what I, along with so many of my colleagues in this place, have been fighting for over the last few days: the veterans, the interpreters who supported families, those who identified IEDs, the female journalists fighting for their lives who have already had mines blow up their stations, and those who negotiated for their fellow Afghans against the Taliban. I must thank the Defence Secretary because he has been constant in his support, every hour over the weekend, to help me to get those people out. I thank him for his time.

Getting people out must be our priority. I welcome the Prime Minister’s G7-led multilateral refugee programme. We have to get non-combatant evacuations proceeding at pace, but we are operating only with the consent of the Taliban—most certainly at the airport—and that can be withdrawn at any time, so my primary concern is those safe routes to the airport. The air bridge must be operational at all times and we must negotiate departures, and not just from Kabul. Land convoys must be considered humanitarian corridors.

Once we get those people out, we must ensure that refugee families are welcome to our country so that they can build the lives they never asked for. The kindness of the British people is great, and Melton Borough Council and Harborough District Council have both already stepped up to the plate and said that they would like to take as many refugees as they can. The MOD is working with me to identify MOD housing stock in Rutland and across the constituency of Rutland and Melton, but I call on the Government to consider creating an initiative that allows British nationals to open their homes, their spare bedrooms and their second homes to those Afghans, similar to the private sponsorship route that already exists, because the British people want to step up and help.

Beyond the immediate life-saving operations, there is much that we must talk about. First, the British Government and the international community must recognise that the withdrawal is emblematic of a changing American posture. The comments that we have seen over the last few days have rattled me to my core, and yes, we are not meant to speak ill of our friends and allies, but in this case, we have no alternative but to call out the comments against our Afghan allies.

Secondly, the views of European allies such as the UK may no longer hold the same sway in Washington under this presidency. That means that we must take greater responsibility for our defence around the world. Global Britain means that we must act autonomously, but through multilaterals on the world stage with other partners, and we must convince our NATO allies that we can all stand together without the Americans. Yes, they bring the kit; yes, they bring the money; yes, they bring the numbers, but this is something that we can and must do. We must shift from the model of being over-reliant on the US.

Thirdly, we must fix our broken international system because it is not saving lives. The UN has failed to enable a political solution. There is no meaningful method or tactics to prevent the worst excesses of the Taliban, and the system is being undermined by hostile money flooding fragile states. There are hostile states sitting on the human rights and women’s councils of all the organisations of the multilateral world. It is the UK’s duty to fix the international system, because we can do it. I have sat at the negotiating tables, and it is the UK that brings countries together behind the scenes and provides the bureaucracy and systems that allow coalitions to be effective. We must recognise our unique expertise and step up.

We must also look hard at our strategic goals in south Asia, because China is most certainly doing that. Its goals are securing influence against Pakistan, stripping minerals and creating an alternative, superior democratic track. Its plunder diplomacy is well under way, and it is already using the situation to threaten Taiwan. It is saying, “Look what the Americans will do. They will leave you.” By recognising the Taliban, China has taken the first step towards creating an alternative international mechanism. The gravitational shift is towards it, and we must stand strong against that.

I also urge caution about our posture towards the Taliban. I must confess that I see what is being laid before the international community as simply platitudes—little more than a tactic to allow the Taliban to consolidate its control, avoid sanctions, keep the aid money rolling in, root out all those on its hit list and avoid UN Security Council measures. Perhaps I am wrong, but Pashtunwali tells us that Taliban intent includes justice or revenge as one of the core tenets of its society and way of life. We must also adequately monitor al-Qaeda.

The human cost of this withdrawal is monumental, but the strategic consequences risk being so much greater if we do not learn the lessons of the past few decades. We must properly focus on atrocity prevention. The new conflict centre, which I fought for, must lead our way in deciding how we become more strategic. We cannot be everywhere in this world and we cannot rescue every mission, but we can work on two core principles. The first is to protect our nation, our people and our prosperity. We must be single-minded in our focus on that and incredibly strategic. The second is that we must live up to our promises so that we can look in the eye those to whom we and our veterans have made promises, and stand squarely behind them. We cannot go wrong if that guides our foreign policy.

Finally, I thank our armed forces, our border staff, our Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office staff and Sir Laurie Bristow for the heroic work they are doing to get people out. I have worked in a crisis centre and I know the hours they are working. We are grateful for all they are doing. They are putting their lives at risk for the duty and responsibilities of this House.

We speak today in a changed world. I have no doubt that we will open our hearts to the people of Afghanistan. Together, we in this House must mourn those who are left behind and those who will not make it. Our singular purpose must be atrocity prevention in the future. We must recognise where the threats to this country lie and ensure that we are single-minded in our focus on challenging them and protecting our people. We must ensure that, in a world that has become darker and more uncertain this week, at least we know the light that we will follow.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)]

Some moments in this debate were among the most harrowing I can remember in 11 years in Parliament. I pay tribute to the hon. Members for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) and for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer), and in particular to the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat) and my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis). They make me proud to be a Member of this House. No matter how painful and difficult it has been for them to speak up over recent weeks, they have done it. They have done the veterans of Afghanistan proud and they have shown themselves to be true friends to the Afghan people. They have refused to despair, even at the darkest moments, because they know better than most of us that despair is a luxury that Afghans, and the world, simply cannot afford.

Those hon. Members have given voice to something that tens of thousands of families in Britain are feeling—our friends, neighbours and constituents who served, lost loved ones or suffered life-changing injuries, and are wondering now what it was all for. They should not accept that this is the end of two decades of sacrifice, or that the degradation of terrorists, the hard-won progress for women and girls, the landmine clearance programme, the access to healthcare, the clean water and the emergence of fragile democracy can be allowed to unravel in just a few days while the world looks away. Like so many of us who have spoken in this debate, they find it impossible to reconcile where we are now, and how it could possibly have come to this.

We recognise that the decision by the United States to withdraw its military presence created an impossible situation for the United Kingdom. As the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) said, NATO’s intention was always to withdraw, but it was to withdraw in a planned and orderly way, linked to conditions. This has failed all those tests. Some 18 months after the decision was made to withdraw at Doha and four months after the timetable was established, the airport is overwhelmed, paperwork cannot be processed, and Ministers openly admit that people will be left behind and that some of them will die.

This is an unparalleled moment of shame for this Government. Security at the airport is now in the gift of the Taliban, and it appears that the Government have no agreement beyond 31 August, in just 12 days’ time. Is it correct that we are wholly reliant on a fragile agreement between the United States and the Taliban, a deal that offers no guarantees that UK evacuations can continue if the US withdrawal is completed before that date and ours is not? Is it correct that no conversations have taken place between the UK and Taliban leaders about that access? Does the Foreign Secretary realise that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) said, his own Department is still advising British nationals remaining in Afghanistan to shelter in place unless further flight options become available, and to keep an eye on Twitter for updates?

The tragedy of all this is that even those people the Government recognise, such as the Chevening scholars who the Prime Minister made a personal promise to this week and this morning, have told us they cannot get through the Taliban roadblocks to the airport and they will be abandoned. This has so much significance for those young Afghans. They represent a generation of promising leaders who are watching the future that they worked and hoped for unravel in front of their eyes.

People—especially women—have burned documents that link them to the UK for their own safety, and so are being turned away at airport perimeters. A British national has been sheltering in a park in Kabul with her young children in recent days because her house was burned down and local people are too scared to offer them shelter. Their MP was promised a phone call from the Foreign Secretary’s private office two days ago. It has not come. What use are promises that are never kept?

The Prime Minister made promises this morning that practically, at this time, he knows the Government cannot fulfil. The Foreign Secretary must address that today. As many hon. Members have said, one of the consequences of the chaos that Ministers have allowed to engulf us is that people will not trust us again. What can he tell them today that will start to put that right?

He will have heard my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) talk about the number of people who helped us but who the Government still refuse to recognise. How have we become this country that drags its feet on saving the lives of those who supported us and stands by while the refugee crisis unfolds? The Prime Minister said last night that we would take 20,000 refugees, but how can anyone believe him? He has made promises before. He promised he would protect the Alf Dubs scheme and give sanctuary to child refugees, and then he closed it. We are better than this.

The Government have given us a press release when what we need is a plan. What is the scale of the refugee crisis that the Government anticipate? What efforts have they made through the United Nations to co-ordinate a global response that is based on a clear assessment of the needs of Afghans, not on numbers plucked out of thin air with no plan for implementation? If I were in the Prime Minister’s shoes, I would be moving heaven and earth to ensure that we live up to our obligations and show the world that we can be relied on—not least by the women and girls who we encouraged and supported to take on positions of authority but who now find themselves the targets of Taliban brutality. Where is the message from the United Kingdom that they are not alone?

When the Prime Minister took office two years ago, we led the world in development assistance, but even now, after the Taliban have taken control, there is no urgency or seriousness about addressing the humanitarian crisis that confronts us. Can we be honest? It is not honest to claim to be doubling aid to Afghanistan when just a few months ago it was cut by half. The Prime Minister should remember that, given that the only statement he made to the House on Afghanistan was when he came to tell us he was cutting the aid budget. I wonder if, after this debate is over, he will reveal that the refugee programme the Government unveiled this morning will be paid for by raiding the aid budget.

[Alicia Kearns]

You raise how many times the Prime Minister has spoken on Afghanistan in the Chamber—[Hon. Members: “You!”] Sorry: the shadow Foreign Secretary mentions the number of times the Prime Minister has spoken about Afghanistan in this House. Will she remind us how many times she has mentioned Afghanistan in this place since coming to the Front Bench?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. It is not my responsibility. Please try not to use “you”, because I am not the example.