Copies of internal emails between UK Foreign Office staff released on Wednesday suggest that Prime Minister Boris Johnson was involved in the decision to allow Paul “Pen” Farthing’s animals to be evacuated from Afghanistan in August.
The emails during Operation Pitting are evidence published by the Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC) on Wednesday as part of their investigation into whether Mr Farthing, a former Royal Marine who ran the Nowzad animal shelter, was able to fly his staff and animals out of Afghanistan following a direct instruction from Mr Johnson.
Last year, on December 7, Mr Johnson called the suggestion that he had intervened in the evacuation last summer “complete nonsense”. Following the FAC's publication of written evidence, the opposition Labour Party accused the Prime Minister of “lying” over the incident and reiterated its call for him to resign.
The revelations come at a crucial time for the government, which is already embroiled in the "partygate" affair, with the opening of a criminal investigation into allegations of parties in Downing Street during lockdowns and repeated calls for the prime minister's resignation.
One of the emails in question shows correspondence from one FCDO official to another in the private office of Mr Johnson's close ally Lord Goldsmith, which refers to the prime minister’s ‘decision’ to evacuate Nowzad staff while trying to see if another animal charity could get the same treatment.
“In light of the PM’s decision earlier today to evacuate the staff of the Nowzad animal charity, the [other animal charity – name redacted] is asking for agreement to the entry of [details redacted] staff, all Afghan nationals,” writes the official in the email dated August 25.
“Having regard to the prime minister’s Nowzad decision, the foreign secretary might consider the [details redacted] vets and their dependents should be included. They might be able to get to the airport with their dependents in time.”
The FAC is conducting an inquiry into the withdrawal from Afghanistan last summer. Evidence has been supplied by whistle-blower Raphael Marshall, who exposed the Foreign Office’s questionable handling of the crisis in written evidence to the committee in December.
The 25-year-old former senior desk officer claimed the UK government's handling of the Afghan evacuation after the Taliban seized control of Kabul in August was dysfunctional and chaotic, and that thousands of emails with pleas for help went unread.
Mr Marshall later resigned from his position in September in protest at the FCDO's handling of the crisis and reported breaches of the Civil Service Code, including his allegations that the prime minister was responsible for the decision to prioritise the transport of Nowzad’s animals and staff.
In one of his written statements of evidence submitted to the FAC, Mr Marshall's initial complaint was "that the transport of Nowzad’s animals had been prioritised over the evacuation of people."
Mr Johnson has always denied that he or his wife Carrie, an animal rights activist, intervened to evacuate Mr Farthing and his hundreds of cats and dogs from Afghanistan, despite claims to the contrary by one of the charity’s employees, as well as Mr Marshall.
Despite the latest revelations, Downing Street continues to insist "that the PM didn't instruct officials to take any particular course of action.'
Mr Farthing has also submitted evidence to the FAC, in which he called into question Mr Marshall's "unverified evidence" and even suggested the whistle-blower had been "paid to write" it.
"The Nowzad team and the British public who supported us should be commended for what we and they achieved; our good name should not be used for cheap political point scoring or to detract from the horrific failings of consecutive British governments to look after those Afghans who worked as interpreters or aided the military whilst we operated in Afghanistan," wrote Mr Farthing in his statement to the Committee.
During the height of evacuations in August, Mr Farthing launched a media campaign to get workers and animals from the Nowzad shelter out of Afghanistan. "Operation Ark" raised funds for a privately chartered plane and generated a huge amount of public support before later causing controversy when it was revealed that the Mr Farthing had left an expletive-laden message for the defence secretary’s adviser, who he accused of “blocking” efforts to arrange a flight.
The Ministry of Defence later announced that the ex-marine and his animals were at Kabul airport and clearance for their charter flight had been sponsored by the UK government.
On Tuesday, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace appeared before the FAC and denied that he had been pushed to allow Mr Farthing and his pets to make their way out of Afghanistan through Kabul airport: “No one lobbied me … The prime minister didn’t ring up. At no stage, at any stage, did the prime minister ask me to make a way for those pets. Not at all. Never.”
He told the FAC that he took the decision to give Mr Farthing’s plane clearance “as long as people weren’t jumping the queue.”
“At the end of that process, if a plane came in, not using our assets, not using the RAF, then it would be given clearance. It was a simple matter of getting it through,” he said.
During evidence, Mr Wallace reiterated earlier complaints that Mr Farthing's public war of words with the MoD during Operation Pitting had distracted those focusing on evacuating the most vulnerable and that MoD staff had faced abuse from Mr Farthing's supporters.
Mr Wallace said Mr Farthing's flight request had only came through on August 27, but that his earlier claims that the MoD was blocking his requests generated a lot of online abuse towards his staff and created a lot of stress and preoccupation.
"Any time was too much time when taking away time from men and women who were under threat,” Mr Wallace told the Committee on Tuesday.
Former Labour minister Chris Bryant raised questions in the Commons about how he could “get to the bottom of who is telling the truth” over the evacuation of a charity and its animals from Afghanistan.
Raising a point of order, he said: “The Prime Minister said on August 26 that he had no influence on that particular case and nor would that be right. “On December 7 he was asked ‘Did you intervene to get Pen Farthing’s animals out?’. He said ‘No, that is complete nonsense’. And a Downing Street spokesperson said ‘Neither the Prime Minister nor Mrs Johnson were involved’.
"Yet today the Foreign Affairs Committee has been able to publish a letter from Lord Goldsmith’s office which says the ‘Prime Minister has just authorised their staff and animals to be evacuated’.“
"How can I get to the bottom of who is telling the truth?”
