Parliamentary reporter @TrinderMatt

JEREMY CORBYN joined left MPs, forces veterans and peace campaigners in a protest outside Parliament today to demand an end to foreign wars — and the “biggest possible” refugee programme for Afghans.

The former Labour leader echoed calls at the demonstration, organised by the Stop the War Coalition, for a new approach based on international co-operation as a means of resolving disputes and tackling poverty and underdevelopment.

The protest came as MPs interrupted their summer break to attend an emergency sitting of Parliament in the wake of the Taliban’s rapid takeover of Afghanistan. 

Parliamentarians from all parties, including back-bench Tories, slammed Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s commitment on the eve of the debate to take in just 20,000 Afghan refugees over the next five years, with a mere 5,000 due to arrive by Christmas. 

The scheme will stand in addition to the Afghan relocations and assistance policy, launched in April, which offers relocation for those who aided British operations in Afghanistan.

Alongside Leeds East MP Richard Burgon, Labour’s Zarah Sultana told crowds at the protest: “You cannot bomb a country into democracy.

“You cannot use liberal state-building policies that are doomed to fail. We cannot have this aggressive foreign policy.”

Later in the Commons chamber, Mr Corbyn called for lessons to be learned, highlighting that it was the West that had originally funded the mojahedin, whence sprang groups such as the Taliban and al-Qaida, which carried out the 9/11 attacks in the United States in 2001. 

US president George W Bush and New Labour prime minister Tony Blair used the ensuing “war on terror” to justify the invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, he argued. “I can hear all those that spoke up against this intervention — not because they were not serious about human rights but because they were serious about long-term peace in the world,” the Islington North MP said. 

“Now surely is the time for a sober reflection on the disaster that has happened in Afghanistan.”

Addressing a packed Commons chamber, Mr Johnson confirmed efforts are continuing to evacuate British and other foreign citizens, with many people stranded at the airport outside the capital Kabul.

But many MPs called for the PM to take higher numbers of refugees from the country, especially considering the threat posed to women, girls and LGBT people by the Taliban.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer called for more to be given safe passage, adding that the 20,000 figure had been “plucked out of the air.”

And he was critical of Mr Johnson’s “staggering” complacency and “appalling” judgement in failing to plan properly for the withdrawal of US and British troops during the last 18 months. 

SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford stressed that the future of Afghanistan had never been so uncertain and that it was “our moral and ethical responsibility” to help more refugees.

Many Tories also turned on their former poster boy, with the PM’s precedessor Theresa May saying it was incomprehensible that he was not doing more. To the amazement of the house, he responded by claiming that Britain had succeeded in its core mission of disrupting al-Qaida’s work. 

He claimed: “It would be fair to say that the collapse [of the Afghan government] has been faster than even the Taliban themselves predicted. What is not true is to say the UK government did not foresee this.”

US President Joe Biden also came in for criticism from MPs for not doing more to protect Afghans.

Just over 2,300 US personnel and 457 of their British counterparts died during the two-decade deployment in the country, alongside tens of thousands of Afghans. Despite this, the Taliban now control more territory than they did before the Western invasion.