Afghanistan

Ian Blackford Excerpts

Thursday 8th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am sure that the whole House will want to thank my hon. Friend for his service in Afghanistan and for all the good that he did with his fellow serving men and women in Afghanistan, but as I think he conceded in his question, what the UK has been able to do in Afghanistan has not been possible through our efforts alone. We have to work with others, and of course the United States plays a massive role in these considerations.

I wish to reassure my hon. Friend and the House that we are not walking away; I made that point absolutely clear to President Ghani on 17 June. I say to the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner)—I should have answered this point—that we are keeping our embassy in Kabul. We will continue to work with our friends and allies, and particularly with the Government of Pakistan, to try to bring a settlement and to try to ensure that the Taliban understand that there can be no military path to victory. There must be a negotiated solution. That is what the British Government will continue to do, and that is very largely what we have been doing since 2014.

[Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat). We should listen very carefully to what he had to say on behalf of himself, other Members of this House who have served in Afghanistan, and indeed those all through these islands who went to that country—those who sadly lost their lives, those who were injured in the conflict and the many who were maimed for the rest of their life.

Let me thank the Prime Minister for coming to the House and for advance sight of his statement. It is an important statement and, of course, it is largely about national security. Let me state that I think that there is an obligation on all of us on the Opposition Benches to work constructively and to be a critical support to what we are seeking to achieve. In that spirit, I commend the Prime Minister and his office for agreeing to Privy Council meetings for the Leader of the Opposition and for us, because it is important that we are as informed as we should be in order that we can play our role in scrutinising the Government but supporting them where appropriate.

While there would have been no question of the UK realistically maintaining a presence unilaterally in Afghanistan, there is no point in pretending that the vacuum created by the accelerated withdrawal of US and allied forces has done anything but create instability. We know that the departure of the remaining western forces from Afghanistan has emboldened Taliban insurgents. In recent days, the Taliban have seized several districts, and they have made it clear that they expect any western forces left behind—even those guarding Kabul airport or embassies—to be a violation of the Doha deal.

It is the stability of the country and the humanitarian interests of Afghanis that should be foremost in the mind of the leaders who have had operations in that country. A situation in which violent extremism and fundamentalism return to the heart of political life in Afghanistan would be dire for Afghanis, as well as for our allies in the region and beyond.

In the past hours, we have seen the fightback intensify, both from Afghani Government troops and from civilians. In a stark reminder of what is at stake, thousands of women have protested in the streets for the freedoms that they know the Taliban will deny them. All they want is what we want: a more open Afghanistan that is a better place for women for its future, instead of going back to the senseless cruelty of the past. For those reasons, it is utterly inexplicable that we have cut aid spending in this country. That hinders any progress in rooting out extremism and abuses against women or in protecting human rights.

May I ask the Prime Minister what general assessment has been made as to any potential security implications of the developments in Afghanistan? What are the implications of any threats from al-Qaeda and Islamic State? What measures will be taken by the UK Government to protect the UK’s diplomatic presence in Kabul?

Finally, I would like to take the opportunity to pay respects on behalf of my party to the families of the 457 British troops whose lives were lost in Afghanistan. I am sure that many of them will be following the proceedings in this House and the actions taken by the Government. They will be asking questions to make sure that there is a lasting legacy to the sacrifices that were made by so many.

[The Prime Minister]

Again, I thank the right hon. Gentleman for the spirit and the content of his remarks. On the substance of his questions to me, our assessment is that the threat from Afghanistan to this country has very substantially diminished as a result of the actions by the UK and our friends over the last 20 years, although clearly a threat remains, and the extent of that threat will now depend on exactly what happens. To come to his points about the Taliban, their intentions and the progress that they are making, I think it is true that the Taliban are making rapid progress in rural areas, but that does not mean that they are guaranteed a victory in the whole of Afghanistan or across the urban areas of Afghanistan, where, as he points out, there is lively resistance to what they have to offer and their view of the way things should be. That is why this Government, through all our agencies—diplomatic, political, development and otherwise—will continue to work for a negotiated settlement, particularly with regional actors such as Pakistan. I believe that is the best way forward for Afghanistan. There must be a settlement and it will have to—I think we must be realistic about this—include the Taliban.