Let us finish the job of providing for Afghan heroes who served with our troops

A new government in Britain is an opportunity to reset this country’s policy towards those brave Afghans who served alongside our forces before the withdrawal of international troops from Kabul three years ago this month.

A campaign by The Independent had already secured, last year, the right to remain in the UK for the Afghan pilot who had served alongside British and US forces, but who had been refused a place on the government’s resettlement scheme.

The air force lieutenant, who fled the Taliban and came to Britain on a small boat because it was “impossible” to get here by a legal route, was refused asylum – prompting fury from politicians and military leaders who called it “shameful”.

He was finally granted permission to remain in August 2023, but it was a partial victory, as his wife and young daughter remained stranded in Iran.

Now, after a persistent campaign by The Independent, supported by our readers, the family is at last reunited, as his wife and three-year-old daughter were granted the right to live in the UK earlier this month.

When our reporter interviewed the family, the pilot’s wife said she hoped to learn English and to resume her work as a midwife. Speaking through her husband as an interpreter, she told The Independent: “The Taliban have closed the schools for women, but here anyone can choose anything that they want to study. No one can stop them doing anything. I heard these things.”

We are proud of our part in making it possible for this family to start a new life, and we urge the new government to finish the job, by fulfilling our responsibilities to the relatively small number of Afghans who clearly deserve our protection but who have so far been denied it, often for trivial and bureaucratic reasons.

We urge John Healey, the new defence secretary, to look again at the cases of Afghans who fought alongside British forces but who are now trapped in asylum hotels in this country or in insecure accommodation in Iran or Pakistan. Those who are already here should be granted leave to remain so that they can work and contribute to British society, which is what they are eager and willing to do. Those who have managed to escape Afghanistan but who are stuck in third countries should be brought here without delay – in many cases the British authorities have already accepted that they did serve with our forces, and yet their cases remain stuck in bureaucratic traffic.

The Conservative government was allergic to anything that smacked of being “soft” on immigration, and so for many of these brave people the path to a new life in the UK was made more tortuous by pettifogging delay and grudging acceptance. This was a disgraceful and short-sighted policy. There is nothing “soft” about this country meeting its obligations to those who were prepared to take the ultimate risk as allies.

Let us hope that the new government, which claims to understand the nature of true patriotism, will meet those obligations with enthusiasm, and in full.