Afghanistan

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Wednesday 18th August 2021 Commons Chamber

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

Twenty years of presence in Afghanistan and I, like many, have known young men and women who gave their youth, their time and their lives to Afghanistan. My friend from university is still there, in the EU mission, trying to sort things out. Another friend, who I had drinks with only last weekend, flew out straight afterwards to help with the chaos. Our minds, of course, are with many of those people, and we hope for their safe return. So I will say nothing that undermines their and many others’ hard work and sacrifice, and all the comments that we have heard today in this place.

We will see how bad the Taliban come to be. I am not hopeful and, more importantly, neither are those thousands of people trying to flee. Those images will be scarred on our minds for a long time. But this is our failure to plan, and it should lead us to hang our heads in shame. Even today, my local university’s Chevening scholars say that they have not been given their final award letter, so despite reassurances from the Government, they too are unable to get out because they do not have the right paperwork. Others report similar bureaucratic hurdles, with requirements such as biometric passports or paperwork that is just impossible to facilitate in such a short time, meaning that families cannot escape.

The UK will be judged by our actions, not our words—and our actions, I am afraid, are too slow. I just do not understand why we cannot airlift masses of people out, whether that be to Cyprus or to other military bases, and process the paperwork there. Let us get people out and sort out the paperwork and bureaucracy afterwards. Failure to do so may cost people’s lives.

The Home Secretary and the Prime Minister say that they do not want informal and irregular routes out for Afghanis, but without a decent legal system and with such bureaucratic hurdles, requiring people to take only formal routes out might either cost their lives or, as the Home Secretary seems to be suggesting, criminalise them for travelling over informally through the channel or other routes. That is a shameful position for the Government that must surely be reversed, as must the Nationality and Borders Bill.

In 20 years, much might have improved, but let us be clear: our nation building failed. We propped up one of the most corrupt Governments and one of the least free countries in the world, according to corruption indices. Although things might get much worse, we must not celebrate our actions, because they were strategically a failure.