The Afghan pilot’s story has exposed a serious flaw in the government’s immigration policy

Dominic Raab, the deputy prime minister and justice secretary, reached for the life raft that ministers often seek when confronted with difficult questions about the Afghan pilot who fought alongside British forces against the Taliban but is now threatened with deportation to Rwanda. “I don’t want to comment on individual cases,” Mr Raab told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

It was never going to wash on such a sensitive case. By definition, the plight of the desperate people risking their lives to cross the Channel in small boats are all “individual cases”. There were 45,000 of them last year and ministers fear the number will grow this year. They are right to tackle a problem that worries many voters. But they should do it in a humane and fair way that reflects the values of the vast majority of British people.

Mr Raab was rightly challenged by Justin Webb, his BBC interviewer, who pointed out that the air force lieutenant arrived in a small boat because did not have a “safe route” out of Afghanistan as he would have needed the permission of the government in Kabul and feared for his life, as The Independent revealed. This process was acknowledged by the Ministry of Defence this week after another disclosure in The Independent. We have also now started a petition to restore justice and to call for the UK to support Afghan war heroes who served alongside Britain.

Mr Raab could and should have said there might be scope within the government’s two schemes for Afghans for the pilot to be helped, given his exceptional circumstances. Perhaps he did not want to encourage similar claims by other veterans of the Afghan conflict who might well be in the same position, given that Afghans now account for the second largest share of small boat crossings; some 9,000 made the journey last year.

The pilot’s story has exposed a gaping hole in the government’s policy. But shamefully, ministers are so anxious to show they are at least trying to honour Rishi Sunak’s pledge to “stop the boats” that they cannot bring themselves to admit it. They repeatedly trumpet the “safe routes” open to asylum seekers and it is true and welcome that these have helped people from Ukraine, Syria and Hong Kong as well as Afghanistan. Yet 4,300 Afghans are waiting to be relocated under the Afghan relocations and assistance policy and only 22 have entered the UK since the 2021 evacuation under the citizens’ resettlement scheme.

During this week’s Commons debates on the Illegal Migration Bill, which would prevent anyone entering the UK illegally seeking asylum, ministers were reluctant to bow to pressure from moderate Conservative MPs to create new “safe routes.” Mr Sunak is performing his customary balancing act between his party’s different factions and is also under pressure from hardliners to stop UK and European judges granting injunctions to halt deportations and limit the scope of the European Convention on Human Rights.

To placate this faction, ministers say the small boats problem must be tackled before there are more “safe routes”, but this is both illogical and unfair. A balanced approach requires carrots as well as sticks and the provision of more legal routes would surely help the government achieve its goal since the number of small boat crossings would almost certainly fall.

It would be morally wrong for anyone who fought on the side of the UK and its allies in Afghanistan to be deported to Rwanda because they were desperate enough to cross the Channel in a small boat. Mr Sunak would be wise to reflect on the image that would project on the world stage as he rightly tries to rebuild the UK’s reputation and repair the damage left by Boris Johnson and Liz Truss.