Britain’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, has blamed the previous Tory government over its handling of the accidental leaking of the names of 18,700 Afghans who had helped British forces, which it was feared could be used to draft a Taliban “kill list”.
In 2022 the spreadsheet of names was emailed to someone in error by the UK’s ministry of defence, sparking a legal application by the previous government for a so-called “superinjunction” to gag the press and parliament. In the meantime, the UK set up a secret operation to fly thousands of affected Afghans to Britain for resettlement.
The £850 million operation was revealed on Tuesday after a judge lifted the superinjunction and the issue was allowed to be discussed in parliament. It was the first time any UK government had ever sought such an injunction, which not only bans reporting of an issue but also any discussion that an injunction was in place.
During prime minister’s questions in the House of Commons on Wednesday, Mr Starmer said the previous Tory government had “serious questions to answer” about the leak.
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Afterwards, his press secretary told reporters in a Westminster briefing that superinjunctions “should never be used to hide inconvenient facts or to save ministers from embarrassment”. The issue was, she alleged, evidence of “total incompetence at the top of government” under the previous Tory administration.
The prime minister’s press secretary also revealed that Kemi Badenoch, the leader of the Conservative Party, only found out about the data leak and the secret resettlement scheme this week because she had declined a high-level security briefing in March where she would have been told about it.
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Meanwhile, Reform UK criticised the previous Tory and current Labour governments over the secret resettlement scheme, known as the Afghan Response Route (ARR). Richard Tice, the deputy leader of Nigel Farage’s party, alleged Britain was “letting in sex offenders, potential terrorists and criminals”.
The original error occurred in early 2022 when the names of 18,700 locals who had worked with British forces during the occupation of Afghanistan were accidentally emailed from the ministry.
In August 2023, the list of names turned up online on a Facebook group, sparking concern in the UK government that the Taliban could target them for retribution. The Daily Mail newspaper approached the ministry about the story, following which the Tory government sought the court gagging order.
In the meantime, the UK scrambled to set up the ARR scheme in secret, flying some of the affected Afghans and their families to London’s Stansted Airport on private planes.
Labour’s John Healey, who was at the time the shadow defence secretary, was told about the issue but he was unable to inform Mr Starmer as it would have breached the terms of the unprecedented court gagging order.
As soon as the Labour leader became prime minister after last July’s election, he was told about the data leak and the secret ARR, which was one of three Afghan resettlement schemes being operated by the UK.
Mr Healey was appointed defence secretary and instigated a review of the situation, which found that the risks had diminished. The Labour government then supported the lifting of the injunction. The ARR and the two other Afghan resettlement schemes have been shut down.
In total, 18,500 Afghans have so far been brought to Britain under the ARR, including 3,000 people named on the leaked list and their families, who were also deemed at risk. Invitation letters to a further 5,000 people have been issued.
About £450 million has been spent on the ARR scheme so far, with a further £400 million expected, while the total cost of the three Afghan schemes together is expected to be almost £6 billion.
