The Afghan fiasco shows how badly the last Tory government let you down
There are some basic facts which the public needs to know and should have known from the start. Firstly, if a court issues an injunction relating to government business, Ministers are prohibited from speaking publicly about it for fear of being held in contempt of court.
Anyone who is claiming that those who have left Government, could or should have 'blown the whistle' before the injunction was lifted does not understand our legal or political system. Like the media, many of us have been unable to speak on this for a long time.
Secondly, and for context, the Afghanistan Response Route (ARR) was launched in April 2024 for those Afghan nationals affected by the leak. This was after I had left the Government and I was not involved in its set up or functioning. The ARR should not be confused with the Afghanistan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP) which was set up in 2021 to rescue soldiers and translators who had served alongside our brave British soldiers that fought and died in Afghanistan.
Thirdly, the mistaken data leak came from inside the Ministry of Defence. There is much more that needs to be said about the conduct of and competence within the Ministry of Defence and the House of Commons is the right place to do so. I hope we have the opportunity soon.
Lastly, any plans to bring in 24,000 Afghan nationals are wholly wrong for our country. Many of these people will not be genuine in their claims to have helped British troops, many of them will pose a public safety and national security risk to the British people and we simply do not have the resources to accommodate them. What's worse is that all who have now arrived here will be able to bring their families under Article 2 of the ECHR.
As Home Secretary, I tried my best to fix the crisis but ultimately failed. 40,000 migrants had crossed the Channel by the end of 2023, over 100,000 asylum seekers were being processed through our slow-moving system and tens of thousands were being housed in hotels all over the country – all this costing the taxpayer £6 million per day. It was out of control and still is.
Whilst I managed to reduce the number of hotels used by asylum seekers, much more was required. What we needed to do – as I argued at the time – was to leave the ECHR so we had greater powers to detain and deport. If we had taken those steps in 2023 when we were in power, the Rwanda scheme would have been up and running and the small boats problem would have eased, if not been fixed entirely.
We would have had much less pressure on the system and the costs would have fallen. We would have been able to refuse admission to 24,000 Afghans affected by the leak as they would not have been able to rely on Article 2 (right to life) rights or we could have worked with other nations like Pakistan or Rwanda to take them.
In all this disgraceful betrayal of the people by their own government, I feel only shame. I, and a handful of others, fought this: but we failed to stop it. This is why on election night last year I apologised for what we had got wrong. This is why I warned about the direction we were heading in back in 2023.
The last Conservative government let you down. The cover-up was wrong, the super injunction was wrong, and the failure to stop unwanted mass immigration has been unforgivable. So I am sorry: the Conservative government failed you and its leaders let you down. It wasn't good enough then. It's not good enough now.
This episode exposes everything wrong with the Westminster establishment. The State apparatus thinks it can hide its failures behind legal technicalities while ordinary people pay the price. I understand your anger, and I share it.
The people who have run this country so badly need to take a long, hard look at themselves. Those responsible must be held accountable, and the system that enabled this cover-up has to be dismantled.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
17 minutes ago
- The Independent
Trump officials wanted to give Musk's xAI a huge contract. Staffers had to explain Grok had just praised Hitler
Donald Trump 's administration was close to giving Elon Musk 's xAI artificial intelligence company a huge federal contract this summer, only to back out after its chatbot, Grok, began issuing antisemitic slurs, according to a report. According to Wired, emails between several AI developers and the General Services Administration, which is responsible for administering government tech contracts, chart how the proposed partnership fell apart as Musk's pet project began dabbling in Nazi rhetoric. In early June, around the time the president and the tech billionaire suffered a spectacular public falling out, exchanging barbed personal insults over their competing social media platforms, the GSA's leadership was meeting with the xAI team 'to see what opportunities may exist for automation and streamlining,' according to the outlet. Their initial two-hour sitdown was reportedly a success, prompting the GSA to pursue the company with enthusiasm, hoping to see Grok integrated into its internal infrastructure as part of the Trump administration's push to modernize the running of the central government. 'We kept saying, 'Are you sure?' And they were like 'No, we gotta have Grok,'' one employee involved in the discussions told Wired. The conversations continued over the following weeks, and xAI was eventually added to the GSA Multiple Award Schedule, the agency's government-wide contracting program. Then, in early July, Grok suddenly went haywire after an update to make it less 'woke' than its competitors went too far, leading to the chatbot referring to itself as 'MechaHitler' in homage to the robotic version of Adolf Hitler that appeared in the 1992 video game Wolfenstein 3D. Grok went on to share several offensive, anti-Jewish posts, barking 'Heil Hitler,' claiming Jews run Hollywood and agreeing they should be sent 'back home to Saturn' while denying that its new stance amounted to Nazism. 'Labeling truths as hate speech stifles discussion,' it declared. Musk's company apologized for the upset and scrubbed the 'inappropriate' posts. Still, it was not seemingly enough to save xAI's relationship with the GSA, although the furore was allegedly not noticed, at least initially, by the agency's leadership. 'The week after Grok went MechaHitler, [the GSA's management] was like 'Where are we on Grok?'' the same employee told Wired. 'We were like, 'Do you not read a newspaper?'' When the U.S. government duly announced a series of partnerships with the likes of OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, and Box, an AI-based content management platform, in early August, xAI's name was not among them. The GSA has not definitively stated that Grok's outburst was the reason for the scrapping of xAI's proposed contract, but two company employees told Wired they believed that was the case. The Independent has reached out to the GSA for more information. The GSA's talks with the AI firms coincided with Trump's administration publishing its AI Action Plan in July, which laid out its goals for the United States to become a world leader in the emerging sector while calling for a reduction in regulation and red tape.
.png%3Ftrim%3D0%2C0%2C0%2C0%26width%3D1200%26height%3D800%26crop%3D1200%3A800&w=3840&q=100)
The Independent
17 minutes ago
- The Independent
Ministers spent £2.4m fighting to keep huge Afghan data breach a secret
Ministers spent £2.4m in legal fees fighting to keep a catastrophic Ministry of Defence data leak secret for two years through the use of an unprecedented superinjunction, it has emerged. The MoD leak, in February 2022, exposed the details of thousands of Afghans who said they were in danger from the Taliban because of their links to UK forces and now wanted to escape to Britain. The breach was only discovered in August 2023 when part of the leaked database was posted online, prompting a top-secret government operation that saw 16,000 affected Afghans brought to safety in the UK. The whole operation was kept secret from the public through the use of a superinjunction brought contramundum, Latin for against the world. Now, freedom of information data shared with The New York Times has revealed that the government spent £2.4m in legal fees fighting to keep the scheme secret. The hidden resettlement scheme, the fact the data the data was leaked, and the injunction itself were only revealed after a court battle lasting almost two years in which media organisations - including The Independent – fought to lift the order. The government admitted after the superinjunction was lifted that information crucial to its overturning was available last year. The unprecedented gagging order was finally lifted in July after a review commissioned by Defence Secretary John Healey found that the threat of danger to those on the list was not significant. In a written response to a High Court judge's demands for further investigation on why the order could not be lifted sooner, a senior government official admitted that a large amount of the information allowing publication of the breach was already known to the Ministry of Defence. High Court judge Mr Justice Chamberlain had previously decided to lift the superinjunction in May 2024, partly because he felt that the secrecy was preventing Afghans from being able to take steps to help themselves, as the order meant the 18,700 Afghans affected could not be told their information had been compromised. However, the government appealed this decision in a bid to keep the order in place, and those affected by the breach only learned they had been exposed when the superinjunction was lifted. Figures for the legal costs of defending the order come as Afghans promised a new life in the UK have been detained in Pakistan police raids. A former Afghan interpreter who was exposed in the MoD breach has been detained after having his offer of relocation to the UK revoked. A former Afghan special forces commando and his family have also been detained and taken to the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, according to a family member who managed to avoid arrest. The Ministry of Defence has been contacted for comment.
The Independent
17 minutes ago
- The Independent
Tories and Reform decry two-tier justice as suspended Labour councillor cleared
Conservative and Reform politicians have decried what they call 'two-tier justice' after a suspended Labour councillor who called for far-right activists' throats to be cut was found not guilty of encouraging violent disorder. Ricky Jones, 58, faced trial at Snaresbrook Crown Court accused of the offence after he described demonstrators as 'disgusting Nazi fascists' at an anti-racism rally in the wake of the Southport murders. He was cleared on Friday. Nigel Farage and shadow home secretary Chris Philp both pointed to the idea of 'two-tier justice' in relation to the case. Mr Philp compared the case to that of Lucy Connolly, who was jailed after she posted a tweet calling for 'mass deportation' and 'set fire to all the f****** hotels' on the day of the Southport attacks last year. In a post on X, Mr Philp said: 'The development of two tier justice is becoming increasingly alarming.' Ex-Reform chairman Zia Yusuf also referred to Connolly's case, and said that 'two tier justice in this country is out of control'. Connolly pleaded guilty last year to a charge of inciting racial hatred by publishing and distributing 'threatening or abusive' written material on X, which meant she did not face a trial. In Jones' case, a jury deliberated for just over half an hour before they found him not guilty. A video showing Jones addressing crowds on Hoe Street in Walthamstow, east London, on August 7 last year went viral on social media after the protest, which had been organised in response to plans for a far-right march outside Waltham Forest Immigration Bureau. The suspended councillor said in the clip: 'They are disgusting Nazi fascists. We need to cut all their throats and get rid of them all.' He also drew his finger across his throat as he spoke to the crowd. Jurors deliberated for just over 30 minutes and found him not guilty on Friday. Jones, who wore a navy blue suit with a white shirt and pale pink tie in the dock, was seen mouthing 'thank-you' at the jurors. Family and supporters hugged each other before Jones, who declined to comment on the verdict, was driven out of the court grounds in a car. The 58-year-old, who at the time was also employed as a full-time official for the Transport Salaried Staffs' Association (TSSA) union, was arrested on August 8 last year and interviewed at Brixton police station that night. Jones, who has been a borough councillor in Dartford, Kent, since 2019, was suspended by Labour the day after the incident. It is understood that a party investigation remains ongoing, and its outcome will decide what happens to his membership. A spokesperson for the party said at the time that his behaviour 'was completely unacceptable and it will not be tolerated'. Giving evidence in his trial, Jones said his comment did not refer to far-right protesters involved in the riots at the time, but to those who had reportedly left National Front stickers on a train with razor blades hidden behind them. Before he made the comment, jurors were shown video where he said to crowds: 'You've got women and children using these trains during the summer holidays. 'They don't give a shit about who they hurt.' He told the court he was 'appalled' by political violence, adding: 'I've always believed the best way to make people realise who you are and what you are is to do it peacefully.'
