Afghanistan animal rescue: did the PM lie?

Emails suggest Boris Johnson did personally authorise the airlift of almost 200 cats and dogs from Afghanistan, while thousands of Afghans were struggling to flee the country during the Taliban takeover. This is despite the PM repeatedly denying he had any personal involvement in the “pets before people” evacuation. 

What are the emails? 

Two emails were released on Wednesday by the cross-party foreign affairs select committee which both appear to be at odds with Johnson’s claim that he did not intervene on behalf of Nowzad animal shelter – a Kabul-based charity run by Briton Pen Farthing, who campaigned to have his staff and animals evacuated.

The emails show an exchange between British officials in the Foreign Office on 25 August 2021. They were supplied by whistleblower Raphael Marshall, a former civil servant who has been highly critical of his old department’s handling of the evacuation. 

The first email is from a Foreign Office official working in the private office of Zac Goldsmith, who was lobbying a colleague to assist with a second animal charity in Afghanistan, using the reasoning that the PM has already helped out Farthing: “Equivalent charity Nowzad, run by an ex-Royal Marine, has received a lot of publicity and the PM has just authorised their staff and animals to be evacuated.”

The second email, from the same day, shows a Foreign Office official from the crisis rescue team refer to: “The PM’s decision earlier today to evacuate the staff of the Nowzad animal charity.”

Why is this significant?

The evacuation mission generated fierce backlash back in the summer. 

Former Royal Marine, Paul “Pen” Farthing, and the cats and dogs of Nowzad shelter were rescued in one of the last flights out of Kabul. The plane was privately-funded by Farthing’s supporters but they needed permission from the government to land in Britain.

The UK government eventually sponsored the charter flight and were subsequently accused of having prioritised pets over humans, with thousands of Afghans left stranded at or near Kabul airport. 

At the time, it was revealed that allies of Farthing, led by campaigner Dominic Dyer, had been lobbying key figures, including Goldsmith and the Prime Minister’s wife, Carrie Johnson, for help. However, in December, Boris Johnson dismissed the suggestion that he had intervened on the charity’s behalf as “complete nonsense” in a television interview.

The newly published emails are significant since they suggest Johnson may have been lying. 

How has Downing Street reacted? 

Despite this new development, Downing Street is still insisting that the PM had no role in authorising individual evacuations from Afghanistan, including any of the Nowzad staff and animals: “At no point did the PM instruct staff to take any particular course of action on Nowzad,” says a Number 10 spokesperson. 

When asked today during a visit to north Wales if he had intervened to help evacuate any animals, Boris Johnson replied: “This whole thing is total rhubarb.”

Sir Philip Barton, the permanent secretary of the Foreign Office, was asked this week if he had “any reason to believe” Johnson was behind the rescue decision, and has simply said: “I am not aware of that beyond speculation in the public domain”.

While the emails clearly show that there were officials who believed the PM to have personally intervened, those defending Johnson point out that these officials could have been mistaken. 

Ben Wallace, the Defence Secretary, has insisted Johnson never got in touch with him about the charity’s evacuation: “(The emails) certainly don’t show the reality, which was: I was in charge, the Prime Minister never asked me.”