Is the BBC really telling us there are only 42000 asylum-seekers waiting for an appeal? Where are the rest?

Without context, this is a meaningless figure.

How many have been refused and are being deported?

How many have been accepted and are being integrated into society?

This Writer would certainly agree with the Refugee Council’s comment that the government is moving the asylum crisis from one part of the system (the Home Office) to another (the courts) – but I would also suggest that this is how justice works; we have checks and balances to ensure mistakes do not happen.

One aspect of the report that should ring alarm bells is the number of Afghans who have been trying to settle in the UK, after our – peacekeeping? Occupation? – forces evacuated in haste in 2021, leaving that country to the Taliban.

It meant Afghan citizens who had worked with the UK’s armed forces were left behind to face possible death at the hands of the new rulers if they stayed. Instead, many thousands have trekked halfway across the world to seek asylum here.

The Tory response was to make it harder for them to claim that status:

After the government enacted the Nationality and Borders Act, only four in 10 Afghans were given permission to stay in the second half of last year. Previously, almost all Afghans asking for sanctuary were granted asylum.

There’s an element of possible corruption in this, for reasons I have previously discussed:

According to the BBC, UK Special Forces (UKSF) command rejected resettlement applications from more than 2,000 Afghan commandos who had shown credible evidence of service in units that fought alongside the SAS and SBS – every single application that had been received.

This is despite the fact that, when the country fell to the Taliban in 2021, they were judged to be in grave danger of reprisal and were entitled to apply for resettlement to the UK.

The rejection of their applications came when a public inquiry in the UK was investigating allegations that British Special Forces had committed war crimes on operations in Afghanistan where the Afghan commandos were present.

The inquiry may compel witnesses who are in the UK, but not non-UK nationals who are overseas. If resettled, former Afghan commandos could be compelled by the inquiry to provide potentially significant evidence.

So it seems their applications were subjected to a blanket veto – the existence of which was denied by the Tory government of the time. Then-defence minister Andrew Murrison was subsequently forced to admit that the government had misled Parliament with its denials.

The resettlement vetoes meant the commandos had to stay in Afghanistan, where their lives were endangered. And of course a dead commando cannot give evidence about alleged war crimes. Dozens have reportedly been beaten, tortured or killed by the Taliban since that group regained control of the country. Blood on UKSF’s hands?

It all suggests strongly that these cases should indeed be heard in the courts, in the name of justice.

It also casts doubt on the UK’s operations in Afghanistan, if our government could not guarantee to shelter Afghan citizens who helped our forces if they had to flee.

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