With ministers at war and MPs in revolution, Boris Johnson fights a losing battle | Katie Bowles

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When the government first made plans to abolish the virtual parliament and bring MPs back to the House of Commons, ministers argued it would boost support for the prime minister. Boris Johnson tends to work better with the public, so events such as the Prime Minister’s Questions were more difficult when only a few members of the Conservative Party were allowed into the room.

But when conservative politicians turned up in droves to the House of Commons on Wednesday to discuss the situation in Afghanistan, the opposite was proven. Rather than offering supportive interventions, Johnson soon discovered that his biggest critics were sitting right behind him.

As Tory MPs lined up one by one to vent their anger over the way the government had allowed the Taliban to take control of Afghanistan and criticize the response to the deepening humanitarian crisis, it was clear how little support the prime minister had. “It is good to see Tory MPs suddenly realize how foolish their president is,” one Labor figure noted.

As Johnson faces his biggest foreign policy challenge since entering 10 Downing Street, he faces a feuding government and a frantic Parliamentary party. To make matters worse, the questions being asked about the UK’s place in the world overlap with the very identity of the Conservative Party.

The party has always prided itself on its commitment to defense, its special relationship with the United States, and the ability to wield its hard and soft power on the world stage. However, after the UK bounced back into Afghanistan with little consultation with the Biden administration, all three things came into question. No wonder the blame game is underway. Tensions escalated between the Department of Defense and the Department of State regarding the rescue effort.

When the Prime Minister stood up to open the debate, equal attention was paid to two rocky men sitting on either side of him: Dominic Raab and Ben Wallace. “I wouldn’t have been surprised if clashes had broken out,” said one of the old MPs.

The secretary of state and defense minister clashed, with the Guardian reporting that Wallace told colleagues there would be a “calculation” for the department after several diplomats left “on the first plane,” leaving Defense Department officials to handle complex resettlement claims. While Wallace has publicly defended Raab since then, Defense Department employees have claimed that their earlier warnings were not taken seriously enough.

But Rap’s problems go further than that. The foreign minister is facing a growing backlash from the Conservative Party over his decision to only return from a holiday in Crete on Sunday night when the Taliban were on their way to seize Kabul. “From the cabinet, he has a reputation for being sane. What the hell was he thinking?” asks a government aide.

A new revelation from The Mail that Raab failed to heed the advice of State Department officials and make a crucial phone call to the Afghan foreign minister to ask for help getting the interpreters out of Afghanistan will only increase the pressure. When Raab addressed MPs on a call earlier this week to answer questions, many of them came unmoved. “He seemed really surprised at how quickly things were going. He had at least a nice tan,” says one of the attendees.

“There is a lot of anger towards Boris and Dom,” says one member of the government. “Why were they on vacation at the same time? Rapp is his deputy. The only person who came out of this with any integrity is Ben [Wallace]. Not that Wallace completely escaped criticism. When he appeared to shed a tear in a radio interview about the situation, some colleagues were unfavorably quick to compare him unfavorably to the time Matt Hancock was accused of pretending to cry on TV in response to the first coronavirus vaccines. Meanwhile, Priti Patel is due to address Conservative MPs today and a number of ‘red wall’ MPs are asking for reassurances about security checks being carried out on Afghan refugees accepted into the resettlement scheme.

While the debate failed to indicate public support for an alternative strategy for the government, it did point out the problems Johnson now faces. As MPs praised Foreign Affairs Select Committee Chairman Tom Tugendhat – who served in Afghanistan – for his emotional rhetoric, and more criticism of Raab’s failure to refer to it in his debate closing remarks, there were complaints that it contained clearer leadership and insight from Vanguard’s contributions.

The fact that Joe Biden has spoken to the prime minister by phone only a few times since entering the White House is leading to concern among Johnson’s supporters that he has little leverage over a key ally. This means pressing Johnson to strengthen European ties at a time when disagreements over the Northern Ireland Protocol persist.

Meanwhile, if Johnson no longer believes the UK can command military missions, does that mean a focus on soft power? If so, the timing of cutting foreign aid — and closing DFID as a single administration — is not ideal. There is no strategy or vision. That’s the problem,” says a government source.

For now, the government’s best hope is that the situation in Afghanistan does not deteriorate further either in terms of cruelty and violence there, or terrorism here. At that time, Johnson needs to define what he now believes is Britain’s place in the world, who is best to help him communicate it and how to express it to his party.

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