It’s one thing when a footballer gets a super injunction to prevent the media exposing details of extramarital shenanigans but when the government gets one to cover up a data leak and deny parliamentary scrutiny, it’s a whole different ball game.
A leaked email, sent from an MoD computer in February 2022 contained the names and details of thousands of people who had applied for asylum under the Afghan resettlement scheme, many of whom would have been obvious targets for reprisals by the Taliban. Ministers were not aware of the problem until August 2023 by which time journalists were sniffing around and an Afghan national who’d been denied asylum in the UK had started putting some of the details on social media, effectively blackmailing the British government. That person is apparently living in the UK and facing no legal action.
Years have passed, there’s been a change of government, Defence and other Secretaries of State have been and gone, some Afghans have been allowed to settle in the UK but many more are still in limbo, abandoned by the UK who they supported during the conflict there. The injunction was only lifted this week following an internal government review but there are serious questions about why it took them so long to do that.
So many questions. So many implications and of course a blame game that includes former Tory ministers including Grant Shapps and James Cleverly, Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman and in a bizarre pairing, inevitable calls for a public inquiry from Reform and the LibDems.
Perhaps the most chilling question that needs to be answered is whether the previous government was not, in fact protecting Afghans because it’s clearly failed so many who’ve been left behind but actually wanted to cover up a secret and expensive scheme to bring in migrants while spouting anti-immigration slogans.
The whole debacle might not be the main topic of conversation in the Dog and Duck, or indeed the bars and tea rooms at Westminster in the fag end of this tired and fractious parliamentary session but when trust in politics is at an all time low, using a muti layered blanket of secrecy to keep a serious scandal from public view is dangerous and corrosive. It is a threat to democracy, to transparency and accountability. Unless of course you are the Leader of His Majesty’s Opposition who apparently chose not to attend a briefing on the matter in March and mysteriously didn’t raise it at PMQs. But then, Kemi Badenoch’s performances at PMQs are often a total mystery.
