"What is our policy?”
– Sir Winston Churchill, House of Commons, 13th May 1940
There is nothing Boris Johnson likes more than a pithy catchphrase – get Brexit done, oven-ready deal, levelling up, freedom day, etc. They trip off the tongue, voters repeat them, they chant them back at Johnson on the campaign trail and ker-ching – the votes clatter into the bottom of the ballot box. What is not to like? and they are a damn site more catchy than “nationalise the commanding heights of industry” or “bring the water companies into public ownership”.
The thing about Johnson’s catchphrases is that nobody really knows what they mean – they can mean exactly what the believer chooses. That is their attraction. Get your favourite piece of road upgraded - that can be levelling up - or stop a local housing development. Well, that can be levelling up as well.
That brings up to the missing catchphrase – Global Britain. Here the imagination can run riot. I am reminded of a visit Nigel Farage made to what appeared to be a working men’s club which I guess was in the north of England during the EU Referendum.
“Will anybody vote to Remain?”. Puzzled looks all around. It was if a rather nasty smell had been released. One of the working men, who obviously no longer worked, turned to Farage and said “we need to bring Empire back. You know……Australia, Canada and New Zealand. That’s what we should do.” Farage just smiled, knowing such a thing was a total pipedream. He did not care as the job was done as, for that retired gentlemen, Get Brexit Done meant getting the Empire back together. I guess his imaginary Empire excluded Nigeria, Kenya, Malaysia et al because of the colour of the skin of the locals. It did not seem to matter that Canada, Australia and New Zealand had done rather well for themselves in the decades after the Colonial Office in Whitehall had ceased telling them what to do.
Get Brexit Done was just a steppingstone to Global Britain. Nobody knows what it really means but all the imagination of believers have to do is simply join the dots to form any picture they chose. For those brought up on Second World War movies from the 1950s and 1960s, who were such eager swallowers of the Brexit myth, the thought of the Royal Navy once again ruling the seas, our Army as the world’s policemen installing good British values on a pleading world, and our impartial judges dispensing law and order to the uncivilised, were just irresistible – only those nasty Europeans were stopping us.
To make Global Britain tangible, we have a new aircraft carrier – HMS Queen Elizabeth. It does not have any aircraft, so the US has to supply those, but who cares when we are ruling the high seas once again. It is currently somewhere between the UK and China. It has already given those nasty Ruskies a bloody nose by bravely sailing near the coast of Crimea.
Contested waters. Now call me a cynic, but what happened next has all the hallmark of a prior agreement between the two Navies to show off their hardware. We looked tough and were defending our right to sail through what we considered to be international waters, and the Russians were able to showcase their considerable number of fighting vessels in the area. Both sides look tough – an honourable score draw. The Daily Mail and BBC reporters on the Queen Elizabeth were beside themselves with glee. Job done. They must have been dancing around the beer pumps in that northern working men’s club. Those in the know realised the Russians could have sent our plane-free aircraft carrier to the bottom of the Black Sea at the flick of switch, and there would have been nothing we could have done about it.
The Queen Elizabeth is now apparently sailing towards China – it remains to be seen if the same stunt will be pulled in the contested South China Sea. Perhaps China will not be so accommodating.
In the midst of all this Global Britain posturing, a real international emergency has arrived. An emergency that cannot be resolved with a bit of flag waving or soaring Churchillian rhetoric. Somewhat embarrassingly, the Taliban have literally, in a just few days, achieved a near bloodless takeover of Afghanistan. Twenty years of blood, sweat and tears, and the hard-won rights for citizens, particularly for girls and women, simply evaporated. A mad scramble for the airport saw the US and UK seemingly all over the place, totally unable to control events. The allies have to negotiate with the Taliban just to keep the airport open, with those who leave and stay entirely in the their hands. Nobody knows when the Taliban will just close the airport and deliver the final ignominy and simply kick the US and the Brits out. Brave diplomats remain in Kabul trying their best to get UK citizens and those Afghans who worked for them safely out the country. They do not deserve the pathetic political leadership back in London.
So where was Global Britain as the meltdown worked its way out in Afghanistan? On holiday apparently. The Principal Secretaries of the key government departments were all away on holiday. Boris Johnson marked the arrival of the Taliban at the gates of Kabul by also going on holiday. The Foreign Secretary was already on holiday making it abundantly clear he was not to be disturbed…and our Minister for Afghanistan was also away (but who knew we had one!).
Boris Johnson did what all governments do when there is nothing they can do – they recalled Parliament for a debate. MP after MP from all parties across the House castigated Boris Johnson. Why were you on holiday? How were you taken by surprise by the Taliban takeover? Why was there no plan to get Brits and vulnerable Afghans out of the country? Why had the hard-fought gains over 20 years been frittered away in a matter of days? Where was the Foreign Secretary? How many refugees would the UK take? Why were we deserting the Afghans anyway? Why were we not at the table when President Trump negotiated the surrender deal with the Taliban back in February 2020? If we had 18 months to prepare for an exit why were caught so flatfooted? Will Afghanistan return to being a haven for planning terror attacks on the west? Given the vacuum our exit creates will this be filled by China, Iran or Russia? And so on and so on.
Boris Johnson’s explanation was the along the lines of the world being what the world is, and we had to simply accept that. Anyway, it was all the fault of the Americans. But hang on a minute - is not Global Britain all about the UK exerting influence all over the globe and becoming a truly international influencer without interference from those dastardly Europeans?
Johnson floundered around with a look somewhere between anger and wishing to be somewhere else. This time, no borrowed Churchill phrases or appeal to nationalist sentiment. No Greek or Latin phrases. No appeals to Dunkirk spirit. No roaring lion to call up. Johnson and his catch phrases were exposed for the empty vessels they are. Events were out of control and beyond our control. All we could do was get as many vulnerable people out of Afghanistan within a timescale over which we had no influence, using an airport over which the Taliban controlled access, and with the US controlling the infrastructure. No wonder Johnson slipped away from the House of Commons as soon as he could.
At its first test Global Britain has been exposed for what it is – a meaningless catch phrase.
Despite claiming to be his mate, Johnson had no influence over Trump’s exit deal with the Taliban. Was Johnson even interested? There appeared to be no intelligence over how weak the Afghan government defences would be once NATO had withdrawn its support. There was no plan for evacuating vulnerable Americans, Europeans and locals. This all led to scenes of chaos being played out before the world’s media around Kabul Airport with the Taliban able to pull the plug anytime they chose. We have been able to sit in our living rooms watching Global Britain turn into a laughingstock before our very eyes. Given Downing Street’s media outriders obsession with the Union flag, why have they not been hung proudly over the walls of our compound at the airport?
It could all have been different with a bit more attention. A properly resourced plan would have helped. Prior agreement on who would be eligible for evacuation amongst Afghans, the necessary paperwork in place and secure routes to the airport established. Was it totally impossible to slow down the Taliban advance? Could a defence of Kabul have been mounted?
This does beg the question, did we need to leave anyway? The argument in favour is all about avoiding “forever wars”. There are thousands of US soldiers in South Korea 70 years after the end of the Korean War, there are still US soldiers in Japan although the war ended in 1945, UK, US and French troops remained in West Germany for 40 years after the war, and today there are troops from various nations in African countries. It would appear that one person’s “forever war” is another’s defence of liberty, freedom and human rights. Surely there was an argument that, after all the sacrifices, there was a case for NATO forces remaining in Afghanistan to protect the hard fought for gains.
According to a retired general interviewed on CNN, the Afghans had indeed been fighting the Taliban for some time, but under the command of US officers and with US air cover. Once the command and control and air support had been withdrawn, it was perhaps inevitable Afghan troops would collapse.
We have been treated to a senior British military officer popping up on Sky News to describe the Taliban as “country boys” and deserving of a second chance. One can only guess what those who had fought in the country thought of that.
As I write, Johnson and his ministers are running hard playing catchup. Trying to regain a semblance of self-respect from the debacle. Doing everything they can to look in control when every centimetre of film footage from the airport shows a different story. While this goes on, we are quietly being prepared for the reality that perhaps thousands of innocent Afghans who put their faith in us, believed in us, and worked for us, will just be abandoned to whatever fate the Taliban have in store once the world’s gaze has wandered off elsewhere.
We also know, despite reassuring numbers about folks being flown out each day, back in the UK the Home Secretary still has the racist dog whistle tightly gripped in her lips and will not lift the limit of 5,000 refugees being allowed into the UK annually. We will apparently take 30,000 from Afghanistan but what happens to 25,000 of them as they wait for up to 6 years? Do we not take refugees from other countries in the meantime? Refugees we fly out might get into the UK but those who make it across Europe on foot could be arrested for daring to be on the English Channel and thrown in jail for 4 years.
The Home Secretary and Prime Minister will be acutely aware that according to a recent YouGov poll, the only section of the UK electorate who think we should not help Afghans are Leave voters – Johnson’s Tory Party voter base.
What is currently being played out at Kabul Airport is of our Government’s own making. Putting aside arguments about staying or leaving, the evacuation could have been so much better organised with better planning.
What has been cruelly exposed is the nonsense of Global Britain. Slashing the overseas aid budget, antagonising and distancing ourselves from traditional allies in Europe, and undermining our relationship with the US as we no longer provide a conduit into Europe, have all come together in a humanitarian disaster being played out on a distant, hot and smelly airfield surrounding by “country boy” Taliban armed with weapons supplied by the US and taken from the Afghan military and police.
It is just not possible to be a global player if you are isolated, friendless, cannot be trusted, and are under resourced, and no amount of posturing can repair that.
Perhaps if Ian Botham had been made envoy to Afghanistan all would be well!
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