Tory MP criticised by Downing Street for travelling to Ukraine

A Tory MP has been criticised by Downing Street for travelling to Ukraine against his own Government’s advice.

Adam Holloway, a former soldier and MP for Gravesham, Kent, has appeared in television interviews after crossing into the war-struck country from south east Poland.

Speaking to GB News, he described “extraordinary scenes” of refugees queueing at the border to flee Ukraine.

The 56-year-old, who serves on the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, appears to have gone against the Government’s own guidance with the Foreign Office advising against all travel to Ukraine.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said he was not aware of Mr Holloway’s trip to Ukraine but “our advice applies to everyone”.

Asked if Mr Holloway should come home, the spokesman said: “He should certainly not travel to Ukraine.”

Mr Holloway told the TV channel that he started his day by going to McDonald’s near the border which was “packed with women and children and a few elderly people”.

He continued: “We then went up the road a couple of miles and I crossed over into Ukraine and then really quite extraordinary scenes of thousands of women and children queuing at the border, men separated, foreign men separated, some of them have been living in these corralled areas in the border posts for four days and nights in the cold.

Mr Holloway then drove east into Ukraine and described seeing “the mother of all traffic jams”, adding: “It went on for about 20 miles, I mean thousands and thousands and thousands of cars.”

He described volunteers in a children’s nursery packing up donated medical supplies into medical kits for soldiers, before he headed to a military conscription site.

Mr Holloway, who has previously worked as an investigative reporter for ITN and ITV, said: “We went round the corner and there was a place where people volunteer to sign up for the military, and we ran into Ukraine’s top concert pianist Igor Grubin.

“It was fascinating talking to him, because so many people are volunteering for the military that they’re only taking people with actual military experience, there just aren’t enough guns.

“I’ve only been on the ground for just over 12 hours but it seems to me that these people here are absolutely determined to fight.

“If you look at the moral component of warfare, and as you know I used to be a soldier, that is the decisive thing.

“We can’t know what’s going to happen over the next few days and months but one thing I can absolutely tell you is that these people here, certainly where I am right now and I think right across Ukraine, it does feel to me as if they’re going to fight.”