Alison Rowat: Was Commons mauling beginning of the end for Johnson as PM?

It was therefore heartening to see the Commons so crowded yesterday. During the pandemic we have grown used to a half empty chamber with MPs sitting socially distanced from one another or beamed in by video call. From all four nations they came; it was the least they could do given the shocking events in Afghanistan.

Everything proceeded to order. The Prime Minister delivered his statement, took interventions from backbenchers, the leader of the Opposition countered, and other party leaders had their say. The mood was sombre and formal. It should all have been quietly impressive.

Yet rarely has the Commons looked more irrelevant to the crisis at hand, more powerless in the face of events, than it did yesterday.

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While MPs bobbed up and down in London, thousands of British and Afghan civilians desperate to leave the country were at the mercy of Taliban forces in control of all roads to Kabul airport. As Boris Johnson reminded the House, it was the Taliban who, “at the moment”, were allowing the evacuation to take place.

There was another reality check, this one aimed at those MPs, particularly on the benches behind him, who still thought there was a military role for Britain in Afghanistan. Deploying tens of thousands of British troops to fight the Taliban, he said, was not an option.

“We must deal with the position as it is now, accepting what we have achieved and what we have not achieved."

Those hoping for Mr Johnson to have his long-awaited Churchillian finest hour would have been sorely disappointed by the Prime Minister’s performance. The UK government’s headline-grabbing offer to take in 20,000 refugees is puny in the face of the demand that exists, and the life and death risks taken by so many Afghans to help coalition forces and fledgling governments.

The Prime Minister was on shakier ground still when it came to the question of British preparedness. Among those who took him to task on this was his predecessor, Theresa May. Her contribution to the debate turned out to be far more statesmanlike than his own.

As was pointed out by Mrs May, the Labour leader Keir Starmer and others, the deal on the withdrawal of US troops had been agreed by Donald Trump 18 months ago. A deadline had been set for May 1, 2021. With US forces drawn down to a minimum of 2500 by the time the Trump presidency ended, the Taliban knew that all they had to do was wait out the clock.

This was precisely the period when the British should have been finalising a strategy for an orderly, safe, exit. Mr Johnson claimed yesterday that a plan had been in preparation for “many months”, yet there does not seem to have been any approach made to Nato partners to help with the transition.

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As time ticked on, both Mr Johnson and President Biden were publicly talking down the Taliban’s chances of taking over Afghanistan. Wouldn’t happen, they said. Last week the position shifted: if it happened it would take several months.

But it had been clear from the beginning of August, when the Taliban took control of its first provincial capital, that events on the ground were spiralling away from British and American control. Come the middle of the month every alarm bell in Downing Street should have been ringing.

This was the very moment the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary, incredibly, decided to go off on holiday.

It was either a stunning example of British sangfroid, the likes of which has rarely if ever been seen, or Mr Johnson and Dominic Raab did not have a clue what was happening. Was there a catastrophic failure on the part of the British intelligence agencies to pick up on what was going on in Afghanistan? Or did the message get through, but Downing Street failed to appreciate the enormity of the events that were unfolding?

It would not be the first time Mr Johnson’s administration was left looking at the mercy of events rather than in control of them. The first months of the pandemic were spent with the UK Government in a state of panic, scrabbling around for essential PPE for NHS and other frontline staff. There was supposed to be a plan for a pandemic, just as there was meant to be one for the evacuation of Afghanistan, but it did not survive contact with reality either.

Mr Johnson also failed to take swift and decisive action on an early lockdown. Did a similar bout of swithering go on over Afghanistan?

Between Mr Johnson’s lacklustre performance yesterday and Joe Biden’s shameful speech questioning the courage and integrity of Afghan forces, this has been a dispiriting, but revealing, week.

Those looking to America for global leadership against an increasingly bold and expansionist China will have had their assumptions checked.

Believers in the special relationship – can there be many of them left? – will have had their eyes opened too, and not before time.

With no vote, MPs were left without a formal way of summing up the will of the House. Another reason, perhaps, to question the relevance of the Commons, and indeed the worth of the recall itself. Yet it was right and necessary for MPs to have their say, not least for the dead and injured and all those Afghan civilians who have now been left without a voice.

Something else to take away from yesterday's proceedings in parliament was the depth of disillusionment among Conservatives for their leader. It seemed to grow minute by minute as the day went on.

As with his leadership during the pandemic, his MPs and the wider public may give Mr Johnson the benefit of the doubt on Afghanistan. They might consider that he has once again tried his best in impossible circumstances. But having failed the two greatest tests of his premiership thus far he really cannot afford to fail another.