Now that the last British and American flights have departed from Afghanistan, reports this morning claim that roughly 7,000 British nationals are still trapped in the region, whilst a Pentagon leak suggests the UK insisted that the US held the gates to Kabul Airport open (despite the terror threat) to assist with the British evacuation, leading to more casualties when the bombing took place. Appearing on a tough media round to defend both his department and his own job prospects, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab pushed back on the rumours swirling around SW1 over the weekend. On the Pentagon leak, Raab said on Sky News that:

“…We coordinated very closely with the US, in particular around the ISIS-K threat which we anticipated, although tragically were not able to prevent, but it is certainly right to say we got our civilians out of the processing centre by Abbey Gate, but it is just not true to suggest that other than securing our civilians inside the airport that we were pushing to leave the gate open.”

On reports that 7,000 Brits were left behind, Raab told LBC’s Nick Ferrari he couldn’t “give a firm figure”, though he estimates it’s likely in the “low hundreds”. Asked about doubts over his own future, he said it was “just ridiculous“:

“Anyone taking time out during the evacuation…to go and brief, anonymously, newspapers with a totally inaccurate, skewed set of reporting I’m afraid lacks any credibility and is probably engaged in buck-passing themselves.”

When asked if he’ll be “higher up the league table” than Arsenal come the reshuffle, Raab simply said “I’m a Chelsea fan, and we’re doing just fine”…