Watch: Flashback to Tony Blair committing to ‘not walk away’ from Afghan people

Labour MP Tahir Ali has condemned former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair for sending UK troops to Afghanistan 20 years ago. It comes as a video of a speech Blair made promised that the west would not turn their backs on the Afghan people.

Ali signed a statement also referring to former US President George Bush, saying: “The decision was taken by George Bush and by Tony Blair to go to war and the Afghan people are now paying the price.”

The statement said: “The disastrous situation in Afghanistan is the responsibility more than anything of a 20-year long failed military intervention.

“The responsibility rests with the US, British and other NATO governments which plunged into a war that was always doomed to fail. The fact of the invasion, not its ending, has driven the crisis in Afghanistan.”

The statement was issued by the Campaign Group of Labour MPs, which includes Mr Ali and a number of others on the left of the party, such as former Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott and former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell. Jeremy Corbyn is also a member.

He also tweeted: “Proud to have supported this important statement on #Afghanistan along with my colleagues in the @socialistcam Military intervention has failed. The Afghan people now face a humanitarian crisis and uncertain future. We must provide a safe haven for those fleeing the Taliban.”

Blair

A speech by Blair has reemerged that he made during the time of the invasion of Afghanistan, 20 years ago. He ahs been very quiet in the last week or so as the chaos in Afghanistan has unfolded.

He said: “Just a choice defeat it or be defeated by it and defeat it we must.

He added: “To the Afghan people we make this commitment, the conflict will not be the end we will not walk away like the outside world has done so many times before there.”

Blair’s key advisor Alistair Campbell also came under attack from Labour MP Zarah Sultana, she tweeted at him: “If I had been instrumental in taking Britain into an illegal war that killed more than a million people, I’d keep my mouth shut @campbellclaret.”