Boris Johnson took a strangely upbeat tone when he updated MPs on Afghanistan this afternoon. He argued that British planning for the US withdrawal had been months in the making and that the evacuation effort had exceeded expectations with twice the number of people getting out than had been expected.
He even made some big promises, saying repeatedly that every MP who had contacted the Foreign Office about Afghans who still need assistance would receive a response ‘by close of play today’, and adding that councils taking in refugees would get the funding they needed. Johnson was even rather combative with Defence Select Committee chair Tobias Ellwood, scolding him for not appearing to acknowledge that the British military activity in the country had ended in 2014.
He had a reasonably easy scrap with Sir Keir Starmer, who largely repeated the arguments he made during the debate when Parliament was recalled in August.
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