Shadow Foreign Secretary Lisa Nandy has been all over the airwaves and quick to slam the government for the situation in Afghanistan, though it’s not entirely clear what a Labour government would do differently. Labour – who at least under Corbyn had a fixed position – have both supported and criticised withdrawing from Afghanistan in the space of a month. Positively Starmer-ist positioning…

Last month (7 July) Nandy told Times Radio: 

 “… that time is coming to an end, it had outlived its usefulness that, you know, there were real problems with British troops being targeted. But there are also problems with the Afghan people feeling that the time was long overdue for them to be able to determine their own affairs….. in the end, there is no military solution for, no military future for the Afghan people.”

Now Nandy is condemning Britain’s decision to withdraw from Afghanistan. She told the BBC that:

“…one of the fallouts from the decision to withdraw and to withdrawal very quickly by the US and then by the United Kingdom, is that it sent a message to the Taliban, that they could roam across Afghanistan, with relative freedom with very limited consequences.

In fact, given that in 2010 Nandy abstained on a vote on continuing the UK’s deployment in Afghanistan, she has at different times been undecided about, in favour of, and against UK military involvement in Afghanistan. In power Nandy would have deployed the military in much the same way as the Grand Old Duke of York…