The Allies of the Animal Charity boss Pen Farthing and a Labour MP have cast doubt on Downing Street claims about a letter from Boris Johnson's parliamentary aide Trudy Harrison giving him permission to be evacuated from Kabul in August.
No 10 said Harrison was acting in her capacity as a constituency MP when she wrote the letter, as it continued to insist that Boris Johnson had not ordered the rescue of Farthing and his cats and dogs ahead of desperate Afghans.
But Dominic Dyer, an animal rights campaigner lobbying to help Farthing, said on Wednesday that neither he nor Farthing were constituents of Harrison but that she had become involved in their campaign after some of her constituents raised it.
Trudy was in touch with the PM, from my perspective. Dyer, who had been lobbying for government over Farthing in late August, said the PM was committed to the operation and seeing it happen.
Pen needed something he could hold up at Kabul Airport. To be fair to Trudy, she did a good job and said, I ll see what I can do. I don't know if she took it to Johnson, but I can't believe he wasn't aware it was written. I can't believe he wasn't aware that we tied up the loose ends. Harrison's letter dated August 25, signed by her in her capacity as MP for Copeland in Cumbria and as parliamentary private secretary to the prime minister Itspelled out that the Foreign Office, Home Office and the Ministry of Defence had cleared the way for Farthing and staff at his Nowzad charity to be evacuated from Kabul's airport. She wrote that you are authorised to proceed.
Dyer said the letter was not the letter of an ordinary constituency MP. Dyer said it was sought because Pen did not want to rely on emails from the Foreign Office. It was there to show that he and his staff had the right to leave. Harrison said that the letter, which had a Commons header, was sent on parliamentary paper to confirm that appropriate security clearance had been provided. It was a routine task in response to the requests of many Copeland constituents to assist. Chris Bryant, a Labour member of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee who raised the issue earlier this week, said he was sceptical of No 10 and Harrison's explanations. It all seems to be too convenient and murky. It's clear to me that the prime minister has ordered the evacuation effectively if not directly. He didn't want his sticky fingerprints all over it. Conservative MPs contacted by the Guardian said it would have been unusual to deliberately reference her role as Johnson aide in the Commons if she did not intend to signal it had the backing of the prime minister. Party sources said there was unease at what they believed was an approach that involved prioritising of animals ahead of Afghans in the final days of Kabul.
Over 150 cats and dogs were rescued in one of the last flights from Kabul, but last-minute delays at the airport meant that over 60 staff at the Nowzad charity and dependants had to cross the border to Pakistan before they could come to the UK. Dyer said that this was always a larger humanitarian mission.