Afghanistan

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend. The UK is pulling together with our German friends, our Italian friends, our French friends, our American friends—all our G7 colleagues and others—to forge a collective global view, as far as we possibly can, about how to deal with the new regime in Kabul. It is by working together that we will get the best results. The UK, as the whole House knows, is in pole position in all the key institutions, and we will continue to exercise that role.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

I realise that the Government’s focus at the moment is on refugees and dealing with the immediate crisis, but does the Prime Minister not think that, with tens of thousands of Afghan dead, thousands of American dead and hundreds of British dead, it is time for a full inquiry into the whole process that led us into Afghanistan and the whole notion of a foreign policy in which we intervene all over the world, and that we should start to re-examine our place and our role in this world?

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman knows, because he has heard me say it before, that there was a full review after the end of the military operation in 2014—a review of what it achieved and of the legacy of those brave British men and women who served in Afghanistan. I think that was the right thing to do. As for the rest, I do not know whether he has read the integrated review from cover to cover, but I direct him to it.