How the Afghan crisis became Starmer's latest migrant headache

Telegraph

4 days ago

Sir Keir Starmer could be forgiven for quietly cursing his luck. Late on Thursday 10 July, as he stood next to Emmanuel Macron, the Prime Minister must have felt he was finally getting somewhere on illegal migration.
The announcement of a returns agreement with France, albeit one whose limited scope attracted criticism, was meant to be the moment the Government began to shift the narrative on small boats.
Yet, just over 12 hours later, Downing Street was scrambling to respond to a very different border crisis, as news filtered through that the lid was about to be lifted on a secret Afghan resettlement scheme.
Just over a mile away at the High Court, Mr Justice Chamberlain had ruled that a two-year gagging order, which banned the media from referring to the programme in any way, would finally be lifted the following Tuesday.
His judgment sparked a frantic 100-hour dash to activate contingency plans in Whitehall, as ministers braced for the public fallout.
Defence officials had avoided telling many of the nearly 20,000 people affected by the leak that they were on the list. They feared the news might spread and bring the data breach to the attention of the Taliban.
All of that changed last Friday morning when 'break glass' emergency plans were activated and officials started getting in touch with thousands of victims to warn them that the resettlement scheme was about to go public.
Mandarins at the Ministry of Defence (MoD) stayed through the night as they worked speedily to dole out security advice and open up lines of communication, while defence ministers held calls across Whitehall to co-ordinate the response.
John Healey, the Defence Secretary, and Luke Pollard, the Armed Forces Minister, were on the bureaucratic front line throughout the weekend, staying in the office until past midnight on Sunday as officials raced against time.
David Lammy's Foreign Office was also called in to help, setting up a 24/7 email and phone helpline for Afghans worried about their security.
As the clock ticked over into Monday, advisers suddenly realised that they faced another obstacle to their plans, this time in the form of Parliament's arcane rules.
Tuesday had been set aside in the Commons calendar for a Tory 'opposition day' – one of 20 such dates throughout the year when opposition parties get to take control of the order paper and dictate the subjects that MPs debate.
As a result there were no Government statements scheduled for that day, despite the fact that Mr Healey would need to update Parliament on the disclosure of the resettlement scheme once the super-injunction was lifted.
The unique impasse, which Whitehall sources said was unprecedented, meant that Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Commons Speaker, and Kemi Badenoch, the Tory leader, had to be brought into the loop so that they could make time.
At midday, the gagging order formally ended and The Telegraph and other media organisations who had challenged the injunction were finally able to disclose the jaw-dropping details and scale of the scheme.
The Defence Secretary rose to his feet 40 minutes later to address a quietened Commons.
'Today I am announcing to the House a change in Government policy. I am closing that resettlement route, disclosing the data loss, and confirming that the court order was lifted at 12 noon today,' he solemnly declared.
'It has been deeply uncomfortable to be constrained from reporting to this House. No Government wishes to withhold information from the British public, parliamentarians or the press in this manner.'
Mr Healey had barely sat down before the political recriminations began in earnest, with both Labour and Reform laying the blame firmly at the Tories' door.
The revelations also set off a circular firing squad within the Conservative Party as ex-Cabinet ministers briefed that they had objected to the scheme, but were overruled after the MoD used 'emotional blackmail' to force the plan through.
Sir Ben Wallace, the former defence secretary who applied for the injunction, came out fighting in an article for The Telegraph in which he said he made 'no apology' for actions which had saved the lives of Afghans who served alongside British soldiers.
His successor, Sir Grant Shapps, who extended the gagging order just weeks before last year's general election, tried to shift the blame to Labour by insisting he was 'surprised' the new Government had kept it in place for 'quite so long'.
Downing Street was 'pretty gobsmacked' by the comments, according to sources, not least because after entering office Mr Healey had swiftly ordered a review of the scheme which ultimately led to the judge overturning the super-injunction.
Reform UK, meanwhile, leapt on the scandal to attack senior Tory Right-wingers, particularly Robert Jenrick, who represent the biggest threat to Nigel Farage's attempts to peel off further Right-wing voters.
Zia Yusuf, the former Reform chairman who now heads up its Doge unit, fired off a series of posts on X accusing Mr Jenrick of lying about his involvement in the scheme, and attacking Suella Braverman, who was home secretary at the time.
His outburst was notable as it was the first time that Mr Farage's party had openly attacked current leaders on the Tory Right, with whom it would probably need to form a coalition if it failed to secure a majority at the next election.
As the initial fury over the scandal turned to questions about what happened next, it was Labour which faced the trickiest dilemma as it tried to assuage public anger over a scandal that it inherited from the Conservatives.
The bad headlines continued at the weekend, including The Telegraph's revelations that Afghan migrants arriving under the resettlement programme had brought as many as 22 family members to the UK with them.
Those revelations will heap pressure on Sir Keir and Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, who have come under fire over a surge in small boat arrivals, which are up 50 per cent on last year.
At the same time, Downing Street is facing the prospect of a rebellion from Left-wing backbenchers over its attempts to bring down net migration by curbing the number of people who are arriving legally in Britain on work visas.
Parliament heads off for its summer recess on Tuesday and – with Labour MPs on the laxest, one-line whip for attendance next week – many have already returned to their constituencies to recharge their batteries.
By the time they return in September, there will be new crises and controversies.
But for an administration that will increasingly come to be defined by its record on immigration, the consequences of the Afghan scandal are profound.