Boris Johnson faced a wall of fury from all wings of the Conservative party over the UK’s conduct in Afghanistan, with 11 former cabinet ministers among the dozens of MPs and peers expressing their anger and frustration at Britain’s failures in intelligence and preparation.

During a torrid session in the House of Commons, the overwhelming majority of Tories who spoke condemned Britain’s failure to anticipate the Taliban takeover of Kabul and its perceived humiliation on the world stage. More than 30 Tory MPs spoke against the government, while only a handful voiced support for its actions.

Some also roundly criticised the US president, Joe Biden, whose blaming of Afghanistan’s security forces for the Taliban’s return to power was described as “shameful”.

Opposition MPs taunted Johnson and the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, who were both on holiday last weekend when Kabul was being surrounded by Taliban gunmen.

Opening the debate after recalling parliament, Johnson insisted Britain could not have stayed in the country “without American might”. He said a military defence of Afghanistan by the west was not possible in the absence of Washington’s support.

However, his claim about the UK’s withdrawal efforts were challenged by a number of high-profile Conservatives, including the former prime minister Theresa May, former defence secretary Liam Fox, and former foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt.

May delivered a scathing attack on the foreign policy and intelligence failures of Johnson and President Biden, suggesting the prime minister should have tried to form a Nato alliance to stay in Afghanistan without America.

“Was our intelligence really so poor? Was our understanding of the Afghan government so weak? Was our knowledge on the ground so inadequate? Or did we just think we had to follow the United States and on a wing and a prayer it would be all right on the night?” she said.

Other ex-cabinet ministers who joined in the criticism included Iain Duncan Smith, who said the “parallels with the departure from Saigon of the Americans was shocking but also very true”. He demanded to know: “Did we at any stage demand that the US government review their decision? Did we say to them this was wrong?”

Owen Paterson, a former Northern Ireland secretary, called it the “UK’s biggest humiliation since Suez”, and said the west was “now in a mess”.

“China, Russia and Iran are hostile. What are we going to say to citizens in Taiwan, India, Pakistan and western Ukraine? They will all be worried,” he said.

In the House of Lords, Philip Hammond, a former defence secretary, foreign secretary and chancellor, said there had been a “catastrophic failure of western policy”. Michael Howard, the former Tory leader and home secretary, said the withdrawal “fatally undermines the credibility of any assurance of support – past, present or future – that we in the west offer to those who need it”, saying any future promises “will be in debased coinage”.

In an emotional speech that drew rare applause from MPs from across the house, Tom Tugendhat, the Conservative foreign affairs committee chair who served as an rmy officer in Afghanistan, said the UK and its western allies had received a “very harsh lesson”.

“This doesn’t need to be defeat, but at the moment it damn well feels like it,” he said.

Referring to President Biden’s claim that the Afghan military had not had the stomach to fight for their country, he said: “To see their commander-in-chief call into question the courage of men I fought with – to claim that they ran – is shameful. Those who have not fought for the colours they fly should be careful about criticising those who have.”

Many questions were focused on the government and security agencies’ failure to anticipate the speed of the Taliban takeover. The former chief whip Mark Harper questioned Johnson on the “catastrophic failure of our intelligence or assessment of our intelligence”, given that the prime minister suggested on 8 July there was no military path to victory for the Taliban.

In what appeared to be contradictory remarks, Johnson told the Commons events in Afghanistan had unfolded faster “than even the Taliban predicted”, but this had not caught the government “unawares”.

This left some Conservative MPs privately pressing for an inquiry by the intelligence and security committee and for Johnson to release the intelligence analysis. Andrew Bridgen, a Tory MP, asked the prime minister directly to “share with the house what assessment UK intelligence services made”, but Johnson dodged the question.

A few backbench Conservatives also believe there is a case for a formal inquiry into the UK’s failures in Afghanistan – a proposal rejected by Johnson. Tobias Ellwood, the chair of the defence committee, called for one and warned of his “fear that there will be an attack on the lines of 9/11 to bookend what happened 20 years ago”.

Labour has not formally called for an independent inquiry but it is understood to be prepared to back one. The opposition also urged the prime minister to take more refugees than the 20,000 announced by No 10 on Tuesday night.

Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, said it had been a “disastrous week, an unfolding tragedy” with Johnson leading an “appalling” response due to the UK’s lack of preparation.

Addressing Raab directly, Starmer said the foreign secretary, who returned from a holiday in Crete on Sunday night, could not “coordinate an international response from the beach”.

He said the promise of resettling 5,000 Afghan refugees under a new programme this year, with a further 15,000 helped in future years, was not enough. “For those desperately needing our help, there is no ‘long term’, just desperate survival,” he said.

Criticism also came from Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, who said the UK’s commitment to taking refugees should be “moral” and based on need, not specific numbers. “The failure we face today is not military or diplomatic ... it is political,” he said.

The prime minister told MPs the UK’s position was that it would do everything possible to avert a humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, without a military solution. “We must deal with this position as it now is. Accepting what we have achieved and what we had not achieved,” he said.

Johnson told MPs: “The sacrifice in Afghanistan is seared into our national consciousness, with 150,000 people serving there from across the length and breadth of the United Kingdom – including a number of members on all sides of the house whose voices will be particularly important today. So it’s absolutely right that we should come together for this debate.”

He also promised the UK would double its aid budget to Afghanistan to £286m, though funding will still be lower than 2019 levels, and said the UK would use the G7 meeting next week to coordinate international humanitarian assistance.

Johnson’s spokesperson said it was “new funding in addition to the current aid budget”, which was £167.5m for 2020-21. But the £286m is still below the £292m of funding in 2019.

No 10 said the money could no longer go through the Afghan government now the country was held by the Taliban and said safe distribution of funds needed to be agreed at international level.

“That’s something we will work on with the UNHCR, NGOs and other countries,” the spokesperson said. “There is no current Afghan government and we are not giving this money to the Taliban, it will be used in conjunction with the UN and other routes that may be agreed.”