Boris Johnson will face massive pressure in a Commons debate this morning to explain Britain’s role in the unfolding catastrophe in Afghanistan.
The Prime Minister will kick off a five hour debate to which MPs have been recalled by announcing the UK will resettle 20,000 vulnerable people. mostly women and children, from Afghanistan with 5,000 arriving in the first year.
The total is in addition to 5,000 Afghans whose lives are in danger due to them helping the UK who are already coming under an existing scheme.
But the resettlement programme for 20,0000 rushed together in response to the situation in Afghanistan is already facing criticism that it is too little, too late.
The SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford said that double the number, up to 40,0000 refugees, should be resettled throughout the UK and former Tory Minister David Davies said the target should be over 50,000.
The government will work with councils and devolved governments on where to house Afghans who come to the UK.
Tory Home Secretary Priti Patel defended the approach based on the Syrian refugee resettlement scheme, saying the UK “cannot accommodate 20,000 people all in one go” even though countries like Canada are offering to take more in.
Labour has not put a figure on how many refugees should be taken in but urged the government to hasten the processing of applicants from the chaos at Kabul airport.
Tobias Ellwood MP a former Army captain, and former Defence Minister said: “This is a woefully inadequate response given the scale of the refugee crisis we are about to face as a direct response to our withdrawal from Afghanistan.
“The Government really needs to see the bigger picture here and grasp the scale of the crisis we created.”
As well as the refugees question the Prime Minister will face scrutiny on why the UK and other western intelligence service failed to predict the pace of the Taliban takeover.
In particular MPs will want to know why both Johnson and the Foreign Secretary Dominic Rabb were on holiday as the Taliban swept into Kabul in the biggest reverse of British overseas policy in a generation.
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Opposition MPs will also want details of how the government will respond to the renewed potential of terrorism and how the debacle affects the UK’s relationship with US President Joe Biden.
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