The Prime Minister gave a long-winded and uninformative answer when asked by journalists how many people the UK has left behind in Afghanistan.
Boris Johnson was asked why he didn’t have a clear number of British nationals or other eligible people still to be evacuated from the country’s capital, Kabul.
It comes after Dominic Raab told a panel of MPs yesterday that he was ‘not confident’ of the true figure but that the number of stranded UK nationals could be in the ‘low to mid hundreds’.
Between 800 and 1,100 Afghans eligible for repatriation to the UK have been left behind, according to Government figures, although Labour has said it is aware of 5,000 cases.
While visiting paratroopers today in Colchester, Essex, Johnson praised British soldiers for their role in airlifting more than 15,000 people from Afghanistan as the Taliban tightened its grip on the country.
Among those, more than 8,000 of them were former Afghan staff and their family members eligible under the Afghan relocations and assistance policy (Arap).
He said: ‘When you look at the numbers that we’ve helped to come out … we’ve way exceeded the numbers we thought were eligible.’
But he gave a rambling 251 word answer without really answering the question when asked how many people could have been left behind.
He told reporters: ‘I think Carl there’s a very simple reason for that, and that is when you look at the numbers that we’ve helped to come out – both in terms of the eligible persons, the EP group, and the Afghan repatriation and assistance programme – the ARAP programme – we’ve way exceeded the numbers we thought were eligible.
‘So, your question is a really good one but the answer is that obviously there are some – and, er, and, er, we care for them very much, we’re thinking about them, we’re doing everything we can to help – but the extent of the evacuation, the extraction that has already happened, has I think really amazed people.
‘And I think the real job now, two things we’ve got to do, we’ve got to make sure we continue the work with local councils coming forward to help people find places to live, make sure their kids can go to school, make sure they can be properly integrated into the UK economy and society.
‘And secondly we’ve got to make sure that we level with the Taliban, or the new authorities in Kabul, and they’ve got to understand that if they want engagement with the West, with us and our friends, and I know that they do, then the first priority for them – for us is safe passage for those who want to leave, and we, you know, we set various other conditions for making sure those funds are unfrozen which you know about.’
Johnson insisted the UK needs to ‘level’ with the Taliban and make them understand the need to give safe passage to those wanting to leave Afghanistan.
The Prime Minister signalled further engagement between the West and the radical Islamist group could be dependent on enabling the departures of Britons and Afghans left behind.
Johnson also claimed it had been ‘clear for many months’ that the situation in Afghanistan could change ‘very fast’, but insisted the UK Government’s response to the Taliban surge to power was not ‘spur of the moment’.
He told reporters: ‘The real job now is – two things we have got to do – we have got to make sure that we continue the work with local councils coming forward to help people find somewhere to live, make sure their kids have got somewhere to go to school, make sure they can be properly integrated into the UK economy and society.
‘Secondly, we have got to make sure that we level with the Taliban or the new authorities in Kabul.
‘They have got to understand that if they want engagement with the West, with us, our friends, and I know that they do, then the first priority for us is safe passage for those who want to leave.’
Earlier, the Foreign Secretary said evacuations may be able to resume from Kabul airport ‘in the near future’ as he expressed a need for direct engagement with the Taliban.
The Cabinet minister raised hopes following talks in Qatar today. Raab said the UK will not recognise the Taliban in the ‘foreseeable future’ but said there is an ‘important scope for engagement and dialogue’.
He was using a visit to the region to build a coalition with nearby nations to ‘exert the maximum moderating influence’ on the Taliban as they ‘adjust to the new reality’ of the group being in power.
Raab said he had ‘good conversations’ with Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani about the ‘workability’ of evacuations resuming from the airport for UK nationals and Afghans who worked with Britain.
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