Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Syt]

[Razgovory]

   I can't stop laughing.

[Sheilbh]

From earlier today I still think at some point this is going to kick off and cause a lot of trouble. Problem is everyone who attended is implicated (and Dominic Cummings in full sabotage mode has now tweeted that certain lobby journalists were partying in Number 10 and are now trying to keep the story quiet ). But this is a pretty clear line they've taken now that can be disproved:

No 10 claims there was no party in Downing Street last Christmas and it's 'statement of fact' no Covid rules were broken

The Downing Street lobby briefing has finished. It lasted longer than usual, partly because of another fruitless quest for clarification as to what did or did not happen at No 10 last December when staff had a boozy get-together. Here are the key points on topic.

The PM's spokesman denied that a party took place in Downing Street last December. He said:

As press secretary set out on a number of occasions when questioned about this originally, there was not a party and Covid rules have been followed at all times.

This is a slightly firmer line than we have had before. Downing Street has not denied reports, that first appeared in the Daily Mirror, that an event that would meet any conventional definition of a party (a large number of people drinking booze in the same room, until late in the evening, with games too, just before a holiday) took place just before Christmas in No 10 last year. (There was also a separate one in November.) At PMQs last week Johnson did not deny that a Christmas party took place, and in subsequent interviews he has never said there was no party. Initially No 10 did not deny that there had been a party either, but at one briefing last week the PM's press secretary (the party political spokesperson) said that what happened was not a party, and today the official spokesman (the civil service one) adopted that.

The spokesman said it was a "statement of fact" that no Covid rules were broken. Asked how he could be sure that no regulations were broken at the December event, and what had been done to establish that, the spokesman said:

I don't need to get into the positions we've taken. It is simply just a statement of fact.

Asked how it could be a statement of fact when this had not been investigate, the spokesman said he would not get into internal matters, but that guidance had been followed at all times.

The spokesman said Downing Street will be having a staff party this Christmas. Other government departments have cut back or cancelled big gatherings.

I will post more from the lobby briefing shortly.

And  61% of voters (incluing 40% of Tory voters and 49% of Leave voters) think it "matters a lot". The combo of one rule for them plus people making a lot of changes to their plans last Christmas makes me still think this could be explosive if any of the press can get proper confirmation - and a lot of them are sniffing around

[HVC]

the peeking tie is what really sells it

[Syt]

[Sheilbh]

A junior FCDO desk officer submitting pretty damning evidence (his witness statement's leaked) - now admittedly he's a 25 year old fast streamer who was just a desk officer (with all that implies) but this all aligns with what we all saw and knew:

Whistleblower left to process thousands of pleas for help sheds light on chaos of UK's Afghan evacuation
Tens of thousands of pleas for help went unaswered by Britain amid delays at vital moments and poor communication, according to a whistleblower
Kim Sengupta
Diplomatic Editor

Chaos, failure to allocate resources, fatal delays at critical times, and a lack of communication in Whitehall severely damaged the British government's Afghan evacuation operation, according to a whistleblower.

Tens of thousands of pleas for help from those under threat went unanswered in a system incapable of handling the situation, said a former Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office official. Some of those who were abandoned were subsequently murdered by the Taliban and other Islamist groups.

Raphael Marshall, who worked as desk officer during the crisis, described how for one afternoon in the middle of the airlift he found himself as the only one monitoring the Afghan Special Cases Inbox when thousands of requests for help, from government ministers, MPs and charities, as well as Afghans, were pouring in.

He estimated that between 75,000 and 150,000 people, including dependents, applied for evacuation. "Fewer than 5 per cent of those received any assistance" with the consequence that "it is clear that some of those left behind have since been murdered by the Taliban," Mr Marshall said.

Giving evidence to an inquiry into the Afghan evacuation by the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, Mr Marshall claimed Dominic Raab, then foreign secretary, took several hours to deal with cases which needed his approval as the window for the airlift was coming to a close.

Mr Raab, he says, then stipulated through his private office that he needed "all the cases set out in a well-presented table to make decisions". The foreign secretary's "choice to cause a delay" when time was running out for people to get to Kabul airport "suggests he did not understand the desperate situation," Mr Marshall said.

His testimony will add to the controversy surrounding the Afghan evacuation and lead to further questions about a process which has already come under scrutiny. Mr Raab's departure from the Foreign Office came after criticism of his performance, including that he continued with his holiday in Cyprus as the Taliban advanced on the Afghan capital.

The whistleblower's evidence comes a day after western states acknowledged the Taliban had been carrying out targeted killings of former members of Afghan security forces. It follow a report by Human Rights Watch which documented, in just one investigation, more than 100 killings of ex- government and military officials.

Tom Tugendhat, the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said: "These allegations are serious and go to the heart of the failures of leadership around the Afghan disaster, which we have seen throughout this inquiry. These failures betrayed our friends and allies and squandered decades of British and Nato effort. The evidence we've heard alleges dysfunction within the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office and substantial failings throughout the Afghanistan evacuation effort."

The Special Cases team was set up to look after Afghans who were under threat from the Taliban because of their links with the UK, but did not work directly for the government in London. These included members of the armed forces, activists, politicians, judges, civil servants, aid workers as well as those who worked through subcontractors.

Mr Marshall said in his testimony that many of the emails for evacuation they received "were not read" despite a "usually false ... automatic response that the request for assistance had been 'logged'". A large number of emails which were actually read did not have their details recorded, he added: "We never returned to these emails due to lack of time. They were therefore de facto eliminated from the evacuation process."

For one week "emails were processed by marking them with a flag once read but were not entered into a spreadsheet". The former official holds that "the purpose of this system was to allow the prime minister and the then foreign secretary to inform MPs that there were no unread emails".

The vast majority of these people seeking refuge did not get visas. However, the Afghan staff of an animal charity, Nowzad, run by a former British Royal Marine, got visas and assistance to get to Pakistan, despite not being in any of the "at risk" criteria, while other Afghans who qualified were left in the country.

The Special Cases programme worked alongside Arap (Afghanistan Relocations and Assistance Policy) which was for those Afghans who worked directly for the British government.

The eligibility on Special Cases was often unclear, according to Mr Marshall.

"Therefore guards who had protected the British Embassy and, also I believe, the guards of a [UK] National Crime Agency compound in Kabul were not prioritised for evacuation," he said.

Mr Marshall claimed the UK's ambassador to Kabul, Sir Laurie Bristow, had made a personal promise to the guards that he would secure their evacuation if they got to the airport on 26 August.

But the whistleblower said the Foreign Office crisis centre in London "was frustrated with Sir Laurie for making this promise because capacity at the airport was so limited. This was due to a concern that the 130 guards and their families would 'swamp' the limited available capacity.

"The Crisis Centre attempted to insist Sir Laurie reverse his promise due to limited capacity. I believe he refused to do this."

The guards attempted to get to the airport on 26 August, but were prevented by the bombing by Isis on that day which killed 183 people, including 170 Afghans and 13 members of the US military.

Mr Marshall also cited the case of the Nomad Concept group, run by another British ex-serviceman, Ben Slater, which was involved in a range of activities including security and women's empowerment.

Mr Slater was said to have had travelled to the Pakistani border with 50 of his staff, mainly women, after being assured by UK authorities that they would receive visas. But, in the end, only two visas were offered.

Mr Slater, who had been a member of the security detail for Lord Sedwill, the former National Security Advisor, when he had been in Kabul in a previous post, chose to stay with his staff in Afghanistan. He was arrested by the Taliban and beaten. He was eventually freed after a visit to Kabul by the UK's High Representative for Afghan Transition Sir Simon Gass, and Dr Martin Longden Charge d'Affaires of the UK Mission to Afghanistan.

Mr Marshall said in his evidence that none of the Special Cases Team had "studied Afghanistan, worked on Afghanistan previously, or had a detailed knowledge of Afghanistan". His own knowledge of the country came from reading a book by the former minister Rory Stewart.

Junior officials were "scared by being asked to make hundreds of life and death decisions about which they knew nothing", according to Mr Marshall. On one occasion, he says, "they initially essentially declined to do the task. I persuaded them that unless they accepted the task the emails would not be read at all which would be worse".

The Ministry of Defence complained the confusion in the FCDO was endangering Operation Pitting, the evacuation programme. At one point a list of candidates for airlifting could not be shared between the two departments because of a dispute over vetting.

Troops were drafted into the FCDO to help with the evacuation effort. For a period of time "the soldiers worked with one computer shared between roughly eight people" and "some of them were likely using Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Outlook for the first time in a professional context", he said.

The soldiers were issued log-in details for the FCDO's non-secure phone system but the list was lost during handover between shifts. Mr Marshall and his colleagues contacted British embassies abroad to obtain logins which they could not get any other way. One of emails was to the embassy in the US.

"The British Embassy in Washington found the situation described so implausible that they reported my email to FCDO Security as clearly a Russian phishing attempt", said Mr Marshall.

A government spokesperson said: "UK Government staff worked tirelessly to evacuate more than 15,000 people from Afghanistan within a fortnight. This was the biggest mission of its kind in generations and the second largest evacuation carried out by any country. We are still working to help others leave.

"More than 1000 FCDO staff worked to help British nationals and eligible Afghans leave during Op Pitting. The scale of the evacuation and the challenging circumstances meant decisions on prioritisation had to be made quickly to ensure we could help as many people as possible. Regrettably we were not able to evacuate all those we wanted to, but our commitment to them is enduring, and since the end of the operation we have helped more than 3000 individuals leave Afghanistan."

Edit: And zooming out this is very much starting to feel like a government that's been in office for over a decade. The Guardian and Mail leading on the same story (Afghanistan) is typically a bad sign. You've also got the covid stories, the Christmas parties etc etc. None of them are necessarily going to be killer stories on their own but it's just constant and it feels like just as one quietens down another one - or another problem will flare up.

And the answer so far is "lifestyle punishments for lifestyle crimes" - welcome extra money for treating addicts, but for "lifestyle" drugs things like taking away their passport or driving licence. It's not exactly an exciting policy agenda and faintly reeks of the Cones Hotlilne.

We're still 2-3 years out for an election and maybe if they go all in on some radical ideas (including big planning reform etc) on leveling up or if they replace the Chancellor (or smash the Treasury into two departments: one with a remit to manage public finances and the other to encourage growth) they might be able to get enough energy to refresh themselves.

It still seems very difficult to me to see how Labour can make the leap they need to in one election, especially because they're in such a weak position it's not always clear who to vote for tactically (e.g. it looks like this is an issue in North Shropshire where the Tories may hold on because Labour and the Lib Dems are both arguing only they can beat them - the correct answer in that constituency is Labour). But this feels like a government after four elections and eleven years in office and things can move quickly.

[HisMajestyBOB]

the peeking tie is what really sells it

It really is.

[celedhring]

He auditioning for Line of Duty? 

[Tamas]

Considering how he gained popularity originally, this photo has probably won him the next election.

[Tamas]

Rich pickings today.

Johnson declines to adopt his spokesman's claim there was no No 10 party last Christmas
Boris Johnson has given a TV interview on a visit to a prison this morning, and for what may be the seventh day in a row (the story broke last Wednesday) he faced questions about the Downing Street party last Christmas.

Yesterday the PM's spokesman claimed the event did not constitute a party. But asked today if he was personally saying that what happened was not a party, particularly in the light of the new reports saying people were asked to bring "secret Santa" presents (see 12.07pm), Johnson did not repeat that claim.

Instead, in line with what he said at PMQs last week, when he first refused to deny a party took place, he replied:

What I can tell you is that all the guidelines were observed, continue to be observed. And what I can also tell you is that we're getting on with the job as we have been throughout of dealing with the priorities of the people, particularly fighting crime.

Asked again if this was or was not a party, Johnson repeated the point about the guidelines being followed at all times.

Asked if he had investigated that point personally, Johnson replied:

I have satisfied myself that the guidelines were followed at all times.

and

Johnson says it is 'complete nonsense' to claim he ordered evactuation of dogs from Kabul
Although Boris Johnson would not deny that a party took place at No 10 last Christmas, he was willing in his TV interview to give a robust denial to the claim that he personally intervened to order the rescue of dogs from Kabul in August. (See 11.15am.) That was "complete nonsense", he said.

Johnon went on to praise the evacuation effort generally. It was "one of the outstanding military achievements of the last 50 years or more", he claimed.

[Tamas]

I just hope they won't try to ingrain the Flee from Afghanistan into the national psyche the same way the Charge of the Light Brigade or Dunkirk has been.

Can you imagine the resulting movie? Queue in Spielberg-movie style soundtrack of pathos, while British soldiers urge the 101 Dalmatians through the runway, in the threatening gaze of goatherders in rags  wielding AKs on top of Toyota pickups.

[Sheilbh]

Johnson says it is 'complete nonsense' to claim he ordered evactuation of dogs from Kabul
Although Boris Johnson would not deny that a party took place at No 10 last Christmas, he was willing in his TV interview to give a robust denial to the claim that he personally intervened to order the rescue of dogs from Kabul in August. (See 11.15am.) That was "complete nonsense", he said.

Johnon went on to praise the evacuation effort generally. It was "one of the outstanding military achievements of the last 50 years or more", he claimed.

I mean there's two sides to it. They were briefing that Johnson intervened to save those animals - I remember and am still angry about it. We'll see if they really try to reverse ferret out of it. On the other hand I don't know about the last 50 years but 15,000 was more than I thought at the time it'd be possible to get out and I think the military did their job very well.

Separately the desk officer's evidence also has all the bureaucratic blocks that are so infuriating - examples of more senior FCDO civil servants basically clocking off at 5 and leaving it to junior staff. Also someone saying they couldn't share the information of people whose lives were at risk from the Taliban with the State Department because of GDPR (which is bad law - but sadly believable)

[Tamas]

Johnson says it is 'complete nonsense' to claim he ordered evactuation of dogs from Kabul
Although Boris Johnson would not deny that a party took place at No 10 last Christmas, he was willing in his TV interview to give a robust denial to the claim that he personally intervened to order the rescue of dogs from Kabul in August. (See 11.15am.) That was "complete nonsense", he said.

Johnon went on to praise the evacuation effort generally. It was "one of the outstanding military achievements of the last 50 years or more", he claimed.

I mean there's two sides to it. They were briefing that Johnson intervened to save those animals - I remember and am still angry about it. We'll see if they really try to reverse ferret out of it. On the other hand I don't know about the last 50 years but 15,000 was more than I thought at the time it'd be possible to get out and I think the military did their job very well.

Separately the desk officer's evidence also has all the bureaucratic blocks that are so infuriating - examples of more senior FCDO civil servants basically clocking off at 5 and leaving it to junior staff. Also someone saying they couldn't share the information of people whose lives were at risk from the Taliban with the State Department because of GDPR (which is bad law - but sadly believable)

Fair enough and I have no doubt all involved who are not talentless sociopath chancers (i.e. Raab and Johnson) gave all to achieve what is quite a high number on super-short notice. But the main issue especially when it comes the government's responsibility is that super-short notice itself - the unpreparedness for the whole country flipping to the Taliban in a flash.

[Syt]

"Oh no! ... Anyway ..."

[Tamas]

Are they siblings? They look like siblings.