British members of Parliament are demanding the resignation of the Foreign Office’s top civil servant after Afghan allies and UK soldiers were “utterly let down by deep failures of leadership” during the evacuation from Kabul.
An inquiry by the cross-party foreign affairs committee has called for Sir Philip Barton to consider his position over a “determination to avoid unearthing the facts”.
A scathing report published on Tuesday says the then-foreign secretary Dominic Raab and Mr Barton’s failures to return from holiday as Kabul fell last year marked a “fundamental lack of seriousness, grip or leadership”.
Leaders at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office were told to be “ashamed” that civil servants had to risk their careers by blowing the whistle to unearth the “appalling mismanagement of the crisis” as the Taliban swept to power.
The MPs also said they were yet to hear a “plausible alternative explanation” to Prime Minister Boris Johnson approving the controversial evacuation of the Nowzad animal shelter charity.
The committee said the withdrawal was a “disaster” and a “betrayal” of British allies that will damage the UK’s interest for years to come.
Ministers were accused of having a “total absence of a plan” for Afghans who supported the British mission, despite knowing for 18 months that the evacuations may be necessary if the US withdrew its troops.
The hasty efforts to select people to be flown out was “poorly devised, managed and staffed”, with a lack of clarity causing “confusion and false hope among our Afghan partners who were desperate for rescue”.
“They, and the many civil servants and soldiers working hard on the evacuation, were utterly let down by deep failures of leadership in government,” the committee said.
The Foreign Office was accused of giving “intentionally evasive, and often deliberately misleading” responses to the committee’s investigations.
Mr Barton “displayed a worrying lack of knowledge of the department he leads” and a determination to avoid unearthing the facts, the MPs said.
Mr Raab became Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Secretary after the crisis, but the committee singled out Mr Barton for a failure to record the department’s decisions.
“This would be a serious failure at any time, but during the withdrawal from Afghanistan may have led to the loss of life,” the MPs concluded.
“The committee has lost confidence in the permanent undersecretary, who should consider his position.”
The committee's Conservative chairman, Tom Tugendhat, said: “The UK’s part in this tragedy exposes a lack of seriousness in achieving co-ordination, a lack of clear decision-making, a lack of leadership and a lack of accountability.
“While junior officials demonstrated courage and integrity, chaotic and arbitrary decision-making runs through this inquiry.
“Sadly, it may have cost many people the chance to leave Afghanistan, putting lives in danger.”
Shadow foreign secretary David Lammy said the government had “badly let down Britain’s reputation”, adding that the people responsible “for this calamity should be held accountable”.
“This utterly damning report highlights the scale of the government’s incompetence, laziness and mishandling that likely cost lives and has badly damaged the UK’s international standing,” the Labour MP said.
“It shows how rotten this government is that after skipping the Afghanistan evacuation to sip cocktails on a beach, the Prime Minister rewarded Dominic Raab with the title of Deputy Prime Minister.”
The government defended staff who worked “tirelessly” to evacuate more than 15,000 people from Afghanistan in a fortnight.
“This was the biggest UK mission of its kind in generations and followed months of intensive planning and collaboration between UK government departments,” a spokesman said.
“We carried out a thorough review to learn lessons from our withdrawal from Afghanistan and have drawn on many of the findings in our response to the conflict in Ukraine, including introducing new systems for managing correspondence and increasing senior oversight of our operational and diplomatic response.”
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Founder(s): Dr Baher Al Hakim, Dr Nadine Nehme and Makram Saleh
Based: Vienna, Austria; started in Dubai
Sector: Health Tech
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Funding: €7.7 million (Dh31m)
In numbers: China in Dubai
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Number of Chinese people in International City: Almost 50,000
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Daily visitors to Dragon Mart in 2010: 20,000
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The insured employee may still file an ILOE claim even if a labour dispute is ongoing post termination, but the insurer may suspend or reject payment, until the courts resolve the dispute, especially if the reason for termination is contested. The outcome of the labour court proceedings can directly affect eligibility.
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Celebrities he worked on: Fabio Canavaro, Lojain Omran, RedOne, Saber Al Rabai.
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Gothia Cup 2025
4,872 matches
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116 pitches
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Global state-owned investor ranking by size
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Will the pound fall to parity with the dollar?
The idea of pound parity now seems less far-fetched as the risk grows that Britain may split away from the European Union without a deal.
Rupert Harrison, a fund manager at BlackRock, sees the risk of it falling to trade level with the dollar on a no-deal Brexit. The view echoes Morgan Stanley’s recent forecast that the currency can plunge toward $1 (Dh3.67) on such an outcome. That isn’t the majority view yet – a Bloomberg survey this month estimated the pound will slide to $1.10 should the UK exit the bloc without an agreement.
New Prime Minister Boris Johnson has repeatedly said that Britain will leave the EU on the October 31 deadline with or without an agreement, fuelling concern the nation is headed for a disorderly departure and fanning pessimism toward the pound. Sterling has fallen more than 7 per cent in the past three months, the worst performance among major developed-market currencies.
“The pound is at a much lower level now but I still think a no-deal exit would lead to significant volatility and we could be testing parity on a really bad outcome,” said Mr Harrison, who manages more than $10 billion in assets at BlackRock. “We will see this game of chicken continue through August and that’s likely negative for sterling,” he said about the deadlocked Brexit talks.
The pound fell 0.8 per cent to $1.2033 on Friday, its weakest closing level since the 1980s, after a report on the second quarter showed the UK economy shrank for the first time in six years. The data means it is likely the Bank of England will cut interest rates, according to Mizuho Bank.
The BOE said in November that the currency could fall even below $1 in an analysis on possible worst-case Brexit scenarios. Options-based calculations showed around a 6.4 per cent chance of pound-dollar parity in the next one year, markedly higher than 0.2 per cent in early March when prospects of a no-deal outcome were seemingly off the table.
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Sunday Feb 23, 9.30am, v Iran
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Tuesday Feb 26, 9.30am, v Saudi
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Favourite book: ‘Purpose Driven Life’ by Rick Warren
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Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
