Defence Secretary in war of words with animal charity
DEVON Royal Marine veteran and animal campaigner Pen Farthing found himself at the centre of a bitter ‘pets over people’ row over his mission to get 100 rescued cats and dogs out of Afghanistan.
Defence Secretary Ben Wallace told the former Commando who runs the Tiverton-based Nowzad charity to wait his turn in his desperate fight to get the animals and 68 of his shelter staff on an aircraft out of Kabul.
Mr Farthing had proclaimed on Monday that his ‘Operation Ark’ was under way after Prime Minister Boris Johnson gave permission for a private charter flight – paid for by supporters – to bring the Nowzad staff and animals back to the UK. More than 100 spare seats on the flight would have been available for other people to reach the UK.
But he later claimed he had been left ‘behind enemy lines’ with the Taliban with no back-up from the Ministry of Defence, claiming that a Ministry official had stopped his flight.
It was reported that the Defence
Secretary said he had to prioritise people over pets.
Yesterday morning, Mr Wallace did the rounds on breakfast television to talk about Operation Ark and the Nowzad escape mission.
He told BBC News the chartered flight was not a ‘magic wand’ to get Mr Farthing, his staff and his animals out.
Mr Wallace added: “Mr Farthing hasn’t been blocked. That’s nonsense. It’s total rubbish.”
As a British passport holder, and a person under ‘greater risk’, Mr Farthing had been called forward to leave Kabul, he added.
The Defence Secretary said: “There are thousands of people waiting, some of them under really direct threat because of what they did during the last 20 years.
“They have a right to get on a plane as much as anyone else, and therefore our priority is getting those people processed. I simply can’t push those people out of the way.”
He said the Nowzad staff had been given the right to settle in the UK. “It is misleading to say that if we had let the plane in, everything would be fine,” he added. “If we let the plane in, it would be sat waiting for hours and hours for him and his people to get through.
“There are 15,000 people waiting. This is about prioritisation, and about who we get in those very few hours and days we have left.
“Mr Farthing was asked if he would come forward. He has chosen to say that he is not coming forward without his rescue animals and without his 68 staff.
“I strongly advise him not to do that, but to come back.
“I do not believe that his rescue animals will be under the same threat as people who helped the British state and the British government, and I think in the longer term, when this is over, either that charter plane could come in and fly into the airport or he will be able to come out some other way.
“The airlift is working at full pace, and there are spaces on the plane for him. First they have got to get through the gate.”