This is the real reason Boris Johnson is furious with Dominic Raab

What is the real reason why Boris Johnson is furious with Dominic Raab? Despite all the headlines, it’s not that the foreign secretary was sunning himself at a luxury resort in Crete while Kabul fell into the Taliban’s hands. Or that he did not return immediately when Downing Street officials ordered him back.

Although the opposition parties exploited Raab’s embarrassment, his holiday was a distraction from the real story.

Whitehall insiders tell me Johnson and other ministers are angry because they believe Raab ignored the conclusion of the first Cobra emergency committee meeting on Afghanistan on 13 August by telling his diplomats to return to the UK immediately, rather than stay in Kabul to process the cases of British and Afghan citizens trying to leave.

Raab’s allies deny the charge, insisting he acted in line with his “duty of care” to his officials. But when he heard about Raab’s move, a dismayed Johnson ordered the foreign secretary to send a rapid deployment team back to Kabul.

It wasn’t deployed very rapidly, starting work on 18 August. Initially, the paperwork on visas at the airport fell to the UK ambassador, Laurie Bristow (who remained in Kabul throughout), British soldiers and Ministry of Defence officials. No wonder other ministers want a “reckoning” for Raab and his department.

The Foreign Office’s performance will come under further scrutiny after revelations that in their own rush to flee, embassy staff left behind the names and addresses of seven of their Afghan workers and the CVs of locals who had applied for jobs.

For many MPs, the crisis has become a tale of two cabinet ministers. Raab has been widely criticised for his response. In contrast, Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, who has been repeatedly tipped for the sack whenever a cabinet reshuffle is mooted, has won his spurs.

Some Tory MPs thought Raab dug himself deeper into the holiday hole of his own making in a round of media interviews on Wednesday, when he dismissed as “nonsense” reports he was “lounging on the beach” and paddle-boarding. Choosing his words carefully, he said he was “not asked by my officials” to return to London, but that doesn’t rule out such an edict from Downing Street.

In contrast, Wallace, a former Scots Guards officer, has proved a reassuring presence on the airwaves, demonstrating grip with a human touch. Despite his private fury about the diplomats’ hasty departure from Kabul, he defended Raab for not phoning his Afghan counterpart when his officials recommended it, insisting it would have made no difference because the government in Kabul was already melting away.

Raab’s critics see him as a cold fish, saying it was churlish, when he wound up last week’s Commons debate, not to mention Tom Tugendhat’s brilliant speech in it. Wallace was close to tears in a media interview when he candidly admitted the UK would not be able to evacuate everyone it wanted to. He revealed he had ordered Land Rovers and military kit to be left behind to create as much space as possible on planes for people.

Amid complaints from MPs that desperate Afghans were unable to contact the Foreign Office, Wallace told MPs on a Zoom call to email him personally about urgent cases.

MPs have a catalogue of complaints of messages not being not responded to, phone lines ringing out, Afghans being given different email addresses and no one in overall control. Many of the locals whose cases were taken up by MPs have not been rescued and now won’t be after Thursday’s horrific terrorist attack at the airport.

MPs are suspicious of Boris Johnson’s claim that the UK has evacuated the “lion’s share” of the Afghans it was aiming to. They admit that “who you know” helped.

Shukria Barakzai, a former MP in Afghanistan and a women’s rights campaigner, was being hunted by the Taliban but escaped after the intervention of Labour MP Debbie Abrahams and Tugendhat. Thousands of other Afghans will not be so lucky.

I suspect Wallace will now keep his job in the next reshuffle; he has shown he is in the right one. For Raab, the word on the Whitehall street is that the former lawyer is heading (downwards) for the Ministry of Justice.

The “reckoning” is coming. Raab will face some searching questions about his and his department’s handling of the crisis by the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee next Wednesday. One crucial question: even in the very limited time available, could the UK have got more people out, especially if his diplomats had remained in Kabul?

Tugendhat, who chairs the committee, will extend the one-off session into a wider inquiry. That is bad news for Raab.