Dominic Raab has been accused of "passing the buck" over his disastrous handling of the evacuation from Afghanistan over the last couple of weeks.
The Foreign Secretary was grilled by Good Morning Britain hosts Sean Fletcher and Charlotte Hawkins after the United States officially ended its 20-year war in the Asian country.
During a fiery interview earlier today the Tory minister came under attack from the presenters over his and the government's handling of the situation in the lead-up to the evacuation of British citizens and Afghan refugees.
Hawkins questioned Raab on some of the accusations that have been directed towards him over the last couple of weeks.
She said: "There seem to be a lot of examples of things that should have been done but weren’t, phone calls that should have been made.
"It seems to be the accusation is levelled towards you that not a single call was made to Afghan or Pakistani foreign ministers in the six months before Kabul fell, that basic things weren’t done to help these people when they should have been."
Raab hit back at Hawkins over the accuracy of some of the statements. He said it was a "team effort" in maintaining the political relationships.
He claimed when pressed by Fletcher on the phone calls question, to have had multiple calls with Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Minister of Foreign Affairs for the Pakistani government.
The Tory MP then claimed that Lord Ahmad held the relationship with the Afghan foreign minister, underlining that “team effort”.
Fletcher interrupted: "So that’s a no to that answer.
"It sounds like to me that you’re passing the buck quite a lot and you’e not really standing up.
"I think a lot of people just want a politician who’s going to own things and own maybe some mistakes. Own that things didn’t go the way they wanted to.
"But actually all I’m hearing is that you’re saying is ‘We’re a bigger department, that other people should have been doing this and that’…"
Raab responded by saying: "I didn’t say that, I’m saying the opposite.”
During the interview he also paid tribute to staff at the Home Office, the MoD and people on the ground in Afghanistan for their hard work.
He Raab asked them to “judge us by results” as he said around 17,000 British nationals, Afghan workers, judges, women rights defenders and journalists were all flown out from Kabul Airport.
“Of course lessons will be learned with the benefit of hindsight," said Raab.
When Hawkins confronted him with criticism aimed at him, Raab accused sources briefing the media about the safety of his job as “passing the buck”, with contradictory reports that he’s a micro-manager and also is "asleep at the wheel".
The Foreign Secretary intends to now focus on holding the Taliban to account in letting any British nationals out of Afghanistan.
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