PM pays tribute to ‘heroic’ British troops – as plans revealed to help Afghan evacuees settle in UK

Published

3 years ago

August 28, 2021

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Boris Johnson has paid tribute to the “heroic efforts” of British troops and officials involved in evacuation efforts in Kabul – as the government unveiled plans to help Afghans settle in the UK.

The prime minister has written to the armed forces community to thank them for their role in Operation Pitting, which has seen thousands of people flown out of Afghanistan‘s capital following the Taliban’s takeover.

Afghans who have been brought to the UK will now be the focus of Operation Warm Welcome, which promises to provide support with health, education, employment, and accommodation to help them “fully integrate into society”.

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Mr Johnson told those involved in the evacuations that they “should feel immense pride” for what they have done, including previous efforts as part of Britain’s 20-year Afghan campaign.

“Your efforts in difficult and hostile circumstances have seen the evacuation of thousands of British nationals alongside Afghans who worked with us, and who will now start new lives in the UK,” he said.

“I know that the events of recent weeks will have been hard for the armed forces community to watch unfold.

“Over the last two decades, many thousands of you dedicated years of your lives to service in Afghanistan, often in the most arduous conditions. In particular, I realise that this will be an especially difficult time for the friends and loved ones of the 457 service personnel who laid down their lives.

“So I want to take this opportunity to offer my profound thanks for everything you did and to say without hesitation that you should take the greatest pride in your achievements.”

The government has come under heavy criticism from Afghan veterans on its own backbenches since the Taliban completed its takeover of Kabul earlier this month.

Some have questioned whether the collapse of the Afghan government rendered the efforts worthless, with question marks over whether human rights gains since 2001 – notably for women and girls – will now be reversed.

But a defiant PM said: “Our purpose in Afghanistan was simple – to protect the United Kingdom from harm – and you succeeded in that central mission.

“In the last 20 years, not a single terrorist attack has been launched from Afghan soil against the UK or any other Western country.”

The prime minister said millions of Afghan girls had received an education thanks to the efforts of Western troops, and that no such gains “could swiftly be undone”.

“Whether you are still serving or a veteran, a loved-one, a relation or a friend, you all played your part and you should feel immense pride,” he added.

Analysis by Rob Powell, political correspondent

Boris Johnson is putting on something of a brave face when he speaks about the record of the UK in Afghanistan.

There can be no doubting the heroic efforts of troops working in the country over the last two weeks and two decades.

But serious questions of competence and strategy hang over the UK government.

Potentially the most pressing of these relate to the hundreds of people who were eligible for evacuation but – as the last UK troops pull out – still remain in Afghanistan.

Was enough done by the government to get them processed and into the airport? What chance do they now have of leaving the country as the Taliban takes full control and the UK’s diplomatic presence moves out?

Then there are the broader questions of strategy.

Boris Johnson points to what he sees as victories from the 20-year campaign: a degrading of the terror threat to the UK, education for women and infrastructure improvements.

But can the UK now genuinely “preserve the gains of the last 20 years and give the Afghan people the future they deserve”, as the prime minister has claimed this evening?

Many in his own party think not.

Conservative MP and Afghanistan veteran Tom Tugendhat today called the UK withdrawal a “national tragedy” and “shameful moment”.

It’s not hard to see why many believe any victories from Afghanistan are ultimately swamped by the defeats.

Troops who require support will be able to call upon the NHS Op Courage service, along with existing aid within their respective service.

Help for the Afghans arriving in the UK will be provided through plans dubbed Operation Warm Welcome.

It will be overseen by a new dedicated minister for Afghan resettlement: Victoria Atkins.

The plans include the creation of a central portal where people, organisations and businesses can register offers of support through volunteering, jobs, skills training, donations.

Free English language courses will also be provided in recognition that many of the dependents of former staff and Afghan translators may need this.

The PM said: “For those who have left their homes with no more than a small bag of belongings, and in fear for their lives, coming to the UK will no doubt have been a daunting experience, but also one of hope for the future.”

He added: “We will never forget the brave sacrifice made by Afghans who chose to work with us, at great risk to themselves. We owe them, and their families, a huge debt.”

Home Secretary Priti Patel added: “This week we have all seen the relief on the faces of those who have made it from Afghanistan to safety here in the UK.

“Our message to those who have already arrived, welcome – we are glad you are here and you will be treasured members of our communities.”

Full details of Operation Warm Welcome will be set out next week and build on existing commitments, which include £5m for local councils for housing support and the offer of a COVID vaccine for all arrivals.

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Robert Jenrick or Kemi Badenoch to be crowned Tory leader today – but whoever wins contest faces daunting task

Published

14 hours ago

November 2, 2024

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Robert Jenrick or Kemi Badenoch to be crowned Tory leader today - but whoever wins contest faces daunting task

The next leader of the Conservative party will be announced today, following a run-off between Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick.

The winner will replace Rishi Sunak as the leader of the opposition, after he led the party to a crushing election defeat in July, losing almost two thirds of its MPs.

His successor faces the daunting task of rebuilding the Tory party after years of division, scandal and economic turbulence, which saw Labour eject them from power by a landslide.

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Voting by tens of thousands of party members, who need to have joined at least 90 days ago, closed on Thursday. Both candidates have claimed the result will be close.

The Conservatives do not disclose how many members the party has, but the figure was about 172,000 in 2022, and research suggests they are disproportionately affluent, older white men.

Both candidates are seen as on the party’s right wing. Kemi Badenoch, 44, is the former trade secretary, who was born in London to middle-class Nigerian parents but spent most of her childhood in Lagos.

After moving back to the UK aged 16, she stayed with a family friend while taking her A-levels, and has spoken of her time working at McDonald’s as a teenager.

Having studied computer science at Sussex University, she then worked as a software engineer before entering London politics and becoming MP for Saffron Walden in Essex in 2017.

Ms Badenoch prides herself on being outspoken and has said the Conservatives lost because they “talked right and governed left”. But her critics paint her as abrasive and prone to misspeaking.

At the Conservative Party conference, a crucial staging post in the contest, she began her speech which followed three other male candidates by saying: “Nice speeches, boys, but I think you all know I’m the one everyone’s been waiting for.”

Her rival Robert Jenrick, 42, has been on a political journey. Elected as a Cameroon Conservative in 2014, he was one of the rising star ministers who swung behind Boris Johnson as prime minister and was later a vocal supporter of Rishi Sunak.

But he resigned as immigration minister in December 2023, claiming Sunak’s government was breaking its promises to cut immigration.

The MP for Newark in Nottinghamshire says he had a “working-class” upbringing in Wolverhampton. He read history at Cambridge University and worked at Christie’s auctioneers before winning a by-election.

After a long ministerial career where he was seen as mild-mannered, he is said to have been “radicalised” by his time at the Home Office and has focused his campaign on a promise to slash immigration and leave the European Convention on Human Rights to “stand for our nation and our culture, our identity and our way of life”.

He has put forward more policies than his rival, but attracted criticism for some of his claims – including that Britain’s former colonies owe the Empire a “debt of gratitude”.

A survey of party members by the website Conservative Home last week put Kemi Badenoch in the lead by 55 points to Mr Jenrick’s 31 with polls still open.

James Cleverly, the shadow home secretary and seen as a more centrist candidate was knocked out of the race last month. One of his supporters, the Conservative peer and former Scotland leader Ruth Davidson, has predicted neither Mr Jenrick nor Ms Badenoch will stay as leader until the next general election.

She told the Sky News Electoral Dysfunction podcast: “I’ve now voted for Robert Jenrick, who I don’t think will win. I struggle to believe that the person that’s the next leader of the Tory party is going to take us into the next election in five years’ time and I struggle to believe that they’re going to leave the leadership at a time of their own choosing.”

Henry Hill, deputy editor of ConHome, said the contest which Tory officials decided would take almost three months, has not led to enough scrutiny – because the MP rounds of voting took so long.

“We know much less [about them] than I think we should”, he said. “The problem with this contest is the party decided to go really long, but at the same time, they confined the membership vote – with just the final two – to just three weeks, and ballots dropped halfway through that process.

“We had months and months with loads of candidates in the race, but also that was the MP rounds and you’d think the MPs will have a chance to get to know these people already. For the actual choice the members are going to be making, there has been barely any time to scrutinise that.

He added: “I think the party remembers Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak taking weeks to take lumps out of each other in 2022 and wanted to avoid that. But it means the two campaigns haven’t really been attacking each other and that tends to be how you expose people’s weaknesses.”

After 14 years in government under five prime ministers, it is not since David Cameron in 2005 that the party has elected a leader to go into opposition – with a long road until the next general election.

Veteran ex-MP Graham Brady, who served as chair of the backbench 1922 committee, told Sky News that the position was more hopeful than after the 1997 landslide.

He said: “The biggest challenge for a leader of the opposition in these circumstances is just to be heard, to be noticed. I came into the House of Commons in 1997 at the time of that huge Blair landslide.

“We worked very, very hard in opposition during that parliament, and at the next general election [in 2001], we made a net gain of one seat.

“Now, there is a huge difference between now and 1997. The Blair government remained very popular and Tony Blair personally remained very popular through that whole parliament and beyond. And in 100 days or so, Keir Starmer has already fallen way behind.

“So I think we’ve got a great opportunity. I don’t think we’re up against an insuperable challenge, but it’s a big challenge.”

Kate Fall, now Baroness Fall, worked with Lord Cameron in opposition and later in Downing Street when he was prime minister in the coalition government. She said the next leader needed to keep the party “united and disciplined”.

“The first thing is to think about why we lost. The second thing is what do we have to say? Then they need to be agile, they need to be reactive, but pick their fight, not fight over everything. They also need to get out and about,” she said.

Lord Cameron travelled around the country holding question and answer sessions called Cameron Direct. “When you’re prime minister, you can’t do that as much as you like. But as leader of the opposition you can get out, talk to people, we thought it was very trendy to have a podcast and so on.”

She says this week’s budget gives the next leader “an ideological divide” to get into, but warns that the next leader must not risk alienating former Tories who switched to Labour and the Lib Dems.

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The leader of the opposition will cut their teeth at weekly Prime Minister’s Questions sessions opposite Sir Keir Starmer and respond to set piece events such as the budget.

They will need to get the party’s campaign machine ready for the local elections in England in May 2025, Scottish elections in 2026 and the next general election expected in 2029.