Another brewing scandal involving Boris Johnson

23rd March 2022 / United Kingdom

By TruePublica: Yet again, we now find Boris Johnson at the heart of another scandal – this time over the West’s emergency pullout from Afghanistan. It won’t be much of a surprise to learn it’s about his ‘truthfulness.’

This story was always going to have legs if true. And it looks like that might well be the case.

A whistleblower came forward – which started the rumours and finger-pointing.

But now a second foreign office whistleblower has clearly stated it was “widespread knowledge” that Boris Johnson directly approved the evacuation of cats and dogs via the Nowzad charity from Kabul, Afghanistan – which he has denied, of course.

On January 27th, the BBC reported:

Boris Johnson has rejected claims that he authorised the evacuation of animals from Afghanistan during the fall of Kabul last year. It comes after emails from officials published by MPs suggested the prime minister intervened in the evacuation of the animal charity Nowzad.

But Mr Johnson denied this, and added that the idea animals were prioritised over people was “total rhubarb”.

Josie Stewart, who has worked for FCDO since 2015 including in the Kabul Embassy, says she saw messages on Microsoft Teams, heard it being discussed in the crisis centre, which included senior civil servants and was copied in numerous emails which “clearly suggested this.”

She accepts speaking out could mean she loses her job. “I feel a strong sense of moral injury for having been part of something so badly managed and so focused on managing reputational risk and political fallout rather than the actual crisis and associated human tragedy.”

Chris Bryant is the Chair of the Parliamentary Standards Committee. He was scrutinising this very same issue at committee and said – “What it feels like you’re saying here is that people in the Foreign & Commonwealth Office thought at the time a decision had been made by the Prime Minister and that was through national security advisors. You don’t really want to say that, because if you’re to say that you’re basically saying the Prime Minister and the Defence Secretary are liars.”