Gordon Brown’s shower of lies on Afghanistan reached breathtaking new heights last night when he announced that he wanted international military withdrawal from that country — only three days after calling for 5,000 more troops to be deployed there.

Mr Brown’s utterly cynical and totally hypocritical announcement of his desire for a “withdrawal” is obviously linked to rising dissatisfaction with the war amongst voters.

A new poll published last weekend by ComRes found that seven out of 10 voters want British troops out of Afghanistan.

One day before the poll was published, Mr Brown announced that he was “confident of persuading Afghanistan war allies to contribute to an extra 5,000 troops” to the conflict.

“We are prepared to put more troops into Afghanistan but there’s got to be burden-sharing amongst the alliance,” Mr Brown said. “I am suggesting (that) and sending people round Europe to persuade other countries that they should commit more troops. So we are in a process of persuading burden-sharing.”

Even more disturbingly for Mr Brown, the ComRes poll also found that 47 percent of voters believe that the continued deployment of the 9,000-strong British troops in Afghanistan made terrorism at home more likely.

Mr Brown’s volte-face on Afghanistan is not only in direct contradiction of his earlier appeal for more troops, but also with his 2007 public pledge to Afghanistan that Britain had a “long-term commitment” to that country.

Mr Brown made that pledge to Afghan President Hamid Karzai at a press conference held at 10 Downing Street in October 2007. “After his discussions, Brown told reporters the British commitment would be long term and he is urging others in the alliance to do more,” the Associated Press report of that meeting said.

Mr Brown’s latest announcement is simply a ploy to try and divert attention away from the disastrous war which has killed hundreds of British soldiers, injured thousands more and which is unwinnable, never mind immoral.

There is absolutely no reason at all for Britain to be involved in Afghanistan. The initial reason for the invasion was that Al-Qaeda was based in that country. This may, or may not, have been true.

But even if it was, the reality is that al-Qaeda has bases in a large number of countries, including Pakistan, Somalia, Algeria, Egypt, the Sudan, Indonesia and other regions in south east Asia — and parts of Muslim-occupied Luton, Birmingham and Manchester.

If the logic of invading Afghanistan were to hold true, then all of these regions should be invaded as well.

The Conservative Party for its part has always supported the war in Afghanistan. From the time of the first invasion, that party has always backed the Labour stance to the hilt.

At the last Tory party conference in October this year, David Cameron even promised to increase the number of British troops deployed in Afghanistan in support of the war.

The British National Party, however, was the first political party in Britain to come out in vehement opposition to both the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The BNP does not want an “international conference” on how to “plan withdrawal from Afghanistan.”

The BNP wants all British troops out of Afghanistan immediately. No ifs or buts.