THE government’s promises to ensure safe passage for Afghans left behind in Kabul were slammed by Labour today as like “trying to close the stable door after the horse has bolted.”

Home Secretary Priti Patel said that the government wants to avoid Afghan refugees travelling to Britain unsafely and pledged to create safe routes of passage.

She said Britain is dedicated to helping those who do not escape Afghanistan as part of the withdrawal attempts before August 31.

Shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds said: “These promises are like trying to close the stable door after the horse has bolted.

“The appalling mishandling of the collapse in Afghanistan by Conservative ministers has left huge numbers of lives at risk and a potential humanitarian crisis.”

The Labour MP said that the lack of planning to get people at risk out is unforgivable given that it has been 18 months since the Doha deal. 

“We still don’t know when these supposed safe routes will open or how people fearing for their lives will be able to access help once the airport closes and the military has left,” he said.

“It is a dangerous mess. Ministers should take responsibility and outline plans immediately.”

Cera, one of Britain’s largest care home providers, has pledged to train and employ 500 refugees from Afghanistan over the next five years.

Chief executive Ben Maruthappu said finding employment is “yet another significant obstacle to overcome” for many people starting a new life after being displaced by conflict and that the goal was to support them and the sector.

And London Mayor Sadiq Khan has announced plans to help house Aghan refugees in the capital by expanding the new right to buy-back fund to support councils in purchasing homes that could be used to resettle families.

“London has a proud history of providing sanctuary to those in need and by working together we can help these refugees find a welcoming home in our city,” he said.

Separately, Stop the War Coalition wrote to former prime minister Tony Blair today to challenge him to a public debate on the situation in Afghanistan and the wars that Britain fought in the past 20 years.

The group said that the wars Mr Blair helped to instigate in the early 2000s have created a series of disasters and set off a cycle of violence across the globe, and criticised the continued use of humanitarian intervention as a defence.

“You believe that leaving Afghanistan was ‘imbecilic’ and that we need to be prepared to conduct more foreign military operations abroad in the name of ‘humanitarian intervention’,” the letter read.

“We in the Stop the War Coalition believe that the death and destruction caused by the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq and the attacks on Syria and Libya was catastrophic in itself and that, far from having a humanitarian impact, these interventions have served to make the world a much more dangerous and unstable place.”