The retreat from Afghanistan during the Taliban takeover in 2021 began as a farce, descended into scandal, and has now been exposed as a shoddy cover-up involving an unprecedented government superinjunction that gagged the media for nearly two years.
The farce commenced when then Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab remained on his holiday sunbed at the five-star Amirandes Hotel in Crete rather than return to work during the height of the evacuation crisis. Despite being advised to make urgent calls to Afghan officials about evacuating interpreters, Raab delegated the task whilst lounging at the luxury resort that “styles itself as a sparkling boutique resort for the privileged and perceptive”.
The situation became a scandal as around 200 people were killed in the chaos, with distressing images broadcast worldwide of terrified Afghans clinging to the wings of moving aeroplanes at Kabul airport. The human cost of the bungled withdrawal continues to haunt those who served alongside British forces.
Now, the cover-up has been revealed. The Conservative government of Rishi Sunak obtained a superinjunction in September 2023 to gag the media from reporting a catastrophic data breach that put 20,000 Afghans in danger. The breach, which occurred in February 2022, saw personal details of 18,714 Afghans accidentally emailed outside government systems.
Over the years, superinjunctions granted by UK courts have been condemned for enabling celebrities and sports stars to cover up extra-marital affairs, drug-taking and other secrets. The superinjunction granted to the government in 2023 was “obviously entirely different and no doubt sought for honourable motives”, but it remained a cover-up nonetheless.
Defence Secretary John Healey told MPs on Tuesday it had been “deeply uncomfortable” to be prevented from reporting the data breach to Parliament until now. The High Court lifted the gagging order at noon, following what he described as “tenacious campaigning by media organisations.
“Members of this House, including you, Mr Speaker, and myself, have been subject to this superinjunction. It is unprecedented,” Healey said, revealing that the scheme had been set up in 2021 to provide asylum for people who had worked with UK armed forces who could be at risk of Taliban reprisals.
The ministers involved in seeking the gagging order were former Defence Secretary Ben Wallace and then Armed Forces Minister James Heappey, Healey confirmed. The order prevented disclosure of not just the breach but the very existence of the injunction itself.
Conservative MP Mark Pritchard accused Healey of “wriggling” over the issue, stating: “The fact is that he is justifying this superinjunction and not telling parliament, the press, the public and, unbelievably, the Afghans who were potentially in harm’s way.
The secret relocation scheme, known as the Afghanistan Response Route (ARR), has already brought approximately 4,500 Afghans to Britain at a cost of £400 million. Initial government estimates suggested the total cost could reach £7 billion, though ministers now expect to save around £1.2 billion after closing all Afghan asylum schemes.
Mr Justice Chamberlain, who initially attempted to lift the superinjunction in May 2024, noted it was “fundamentally objectionable” that decisions about thousands of lives and “enormous sums of public money” were being taken in secret. He stated there was a “significant possibility” the Taliban already knew about the dataset.
However, the Court of Appeal overturned his ruling, finding he had not properly considered the consequences of lifting the order. At multiple hearings, Ministry of Defence lawyers argued there was a “very real risk that people who would otherwise live will die” if the Taliban gained access to the data.
Among individual cases highlighted by MPs, Liberal Democrat Calum Miller revealed that “in the chaos of withdrawal” a constituent who left Afghanistan was promised by British officials that his pregnant wife could follow him. “Two years later, we have still not kept that promise,” Miller said. My constituent’s wife and child continue to move around in Afghanistan to evade the Taliban.”
Reform UK’s Zia Yusuf condemned the cover-up on social media, writing: “24k Afghans secretly granted asylum, costing British taxpayers up to £7bn. The government covered it up. Who was in government? Home secretary: Suella Braverman. Immigration minister: Robert Jenrick.
When asked on LBC’s News Agents podcast whether the official responsible for the data breach remained employed by the government, Healey replied: “They are no longer doing the same job on the Afghan brief.” This careful wording suggests the person has not been fired, alarming MPs concerned about accountability.
Asked whether he would have sought a superinjunction if he had been Defence Secretary in 2023, Healey responded: “Very, very unlikely.” However, when pressed on whether he could rule out future use of superinjunctions by the Ministry of Defence, he said: “Well, you can never say never.”
The revelation comes as Britain’s public finances remain tight and the anti-immigration Reform UK party leads in opinion polls. The government faces lawsuits from those affected by the breach, adding to the ultimate cost of the incident.
Sean Humber, a lawyer at Leigh Day representing affected Afghan citizens, said those impacted were “likely to have strong claims for substantial compensation” for the anxiety and distress caused by the leak.
The entire episode represents a comprehensive failure of British policy in Afghanistan. From Raab’s beach holiday as Kabul fell, through the chaotic evacuation that cost hundreds of lives, to a data breach that endangered thousands more, the withdrawal has been marked by incompetence at every level.
While Healey may be determined to avoid future farces, his admission that superinjunctions cannot be ruled out suggests the threat of Ministry of Defence cover-ups has not disappeared. The precedent set by this unprecedented gagging order raises serious questions about government transparency and accountability.
For the Afghans who risked their lives serving alongside British forces, the betrayal is complete. Not only were they abandoned during the chaotic withdrawal, but when their personal data was compromised, the government’s response was to hide the breach rather than protect those at risk.
As one former interpreter stated: “The government has bluntly lied to the entire world.” The journey from farce to scandal to cover-up is now complete, leaving Britain’s reputation in tatters and thousands of Afghan allies still in danger.
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Image Credit:
Evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport, 2021 – Photo by Victor A. Mancilla / U.S. Marine Corps, licensed under Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
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