The catastrophic Afghan Resettlement Scheme

Mithras

The Afghan Resettlement Scheme was trumpeted by the last Tory Government as a moral imperative. As the American military finally fled from Kabul, Boris Johnson vowed to ‘move heaven and earth’ to continue helping people leave. Johnny Mercer, who served in Afghanistan, said that ‘we all’ owe a ‘huge debt of gratitude to the people of Afghanistan’. John Oxley wrote an article in the New Statesman which summed up the centre-right mood of the time; “Resettling Afghan Interpreters is a moral imperative for this Conservative Government”.

Keir Starmer, then Leader of the Opposition, described the idea that translators would not be able to return to Britain as “unconscionable”. Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, even volunteered the capital as a place to rehome Afghans on the basis of it’s “proud history of providing refuge”. Like so many egotistical errors of judgement that the British State has embarked upon in the last thirty years, it came to pass with unanimity across the political establishment.

But what has the real cost of honouring these so-called obligations been? I spoke to contacts working in British local authorities, and what they have told me reveals another cascading disaster that is occurring with almost no press coverage. Like the ‘BorisWave’, of which this scheme is part, it is a tale of reckless and naive generosity, and the unthinking betrayal of British taxpayers.

I have spoken to an insider at a UK local authority who works in the asylum system - he provided a damning account of what’s happening on the ground. Here’s the reality:

• Most Afghan arrivals are not “translators” or frontline “allies” but families who had links to the Afghan army, police, or NGOs. Many have very limited English proficiency, still requiring expensive translators years after they were airlifted into Britain. Some families even turned up with children that weren’t theirs, presenting fraudulent documents bought in Afghanistan.

• Afghan families are draining local food banks while claiming they had no money. Staff were forced to fill vans with food and deliver it weekly to about 12 families, each with 7–8 members. When the food bank nearly ran out, it turned to my contact’s boss for help, only to be told that these families were either working or on full benefits.

• Councils, under pressure to avoid public backlash over allocating social housing to “foreigners,” are paying over the odds to house refugees in private rented accommodation. Private landlords quickly hiked rents by £300–500 a month above local housing allowance rates, knowing councils were using Home Office grants. Once the funding dries up, many of these refugees are likely to become homeless.

• The Home Office provided fully furnished homes, complete with beds, cookers, fridges, and freezers stocked with food, ready to move into. He has seen Afghan families throw tantrums over second-hand carpets and demand higher-quality furnishings.

• He also reports cases of forced marriage and a disturbing pattern of Afghan men pushing ahead of women in shops, and showing open hostility to female staff. Many of the men are also working as delivery drivers and others engage in cash-in-hand jobs while claiming full benefits.

Disturbingly, The Ministry of Defence is preparing to bring thousands more Afghans from Pakistan, where they’re facing deportation into Britain. In Berkshire, Bracknall Forest alone is planning for the arrival of 300 more Afghans, who will be provided with housing and generous state support. At the same time, more than 1,000 British people in the area are stuck on the social housing waiting list. In one instance a Labour councillor was even reported to the Police by a fellow party member for suggesting that locals should be prioritised.

The financial costs are enormous. Tens of thousands per family, likely hundreds of thousands per individual over their lifetime. And all this while locals are displaced from housing lists, left waiting in overcrowded conditions, or struggling with soaring rents as they are forced to compete with the state purchasing and renting homes for refugees.

In Camden, a London borough with extraordinarily expensive housing, the council diverted 41 luxury flats from private sale to house Afghan refugees under its Community Investment Programme - yet another attack on London professionals stuck in the private rented sector. In Wetherby, an affluent town in North Yorkshire where most people can’t even afford to live, Afghan refugees were moved in from London hotels - and yet still complained bitterly about being “uprooted.”

And let’s not forget the reality of this supposedly noble war. A recent AOAV report exposed the reality that British troops were ordered to stand by while Afghan “allies” committed horrific acts of child rape. British Soldiers bore witness to systemic abuse, known as bacha bazi, while being told it was “off limits” to intervene. Some soldiers suffered lasting moral injury, PTSD, and even attempted suicide, haunted by their complicity in these horrors. This was the regime we propped up. These were the men we protected. And now, we’re importing them wholesale into Britain. Given this, it is little wonder that special forces officers intervened to veto thousands more Afghans entering the country.

Due to Priti Patel’s insane decision to grant immediate ILR to Afghan arrivals, the state is left powerless to remove those guilty of fraud, assault, or worse and provides them with eligibility to the UK welfare state. Why couldn’t they have followed the standard, already overly generous and liberal, five-year path? Instead, permanent residence was handed out like confetti, stripping Britain of any leverage to deal with those who abuse our hospitality. It is worth noting, Ukrainian refugees are only granted visas from 18-36 months.

As 2024 intake Conservative MP Katie Lam outlined, Afghans are 22.2 times more likely than British people (a figure that includes Pakistanis with UK passports) to commit rape. In Germany, Afghans and Pakistanis are 16 times more likely to be implicated in rape than German citizens.

Tragic attacks have already occurred. A 16-year-old Afghan boy, accommodated at a UK military camp, was arrested on suspicion of sexually assaulting a teenage girl in Staffordshire. In the Welsh village of St Athan, a 21-year-old Afghan man, Ahmad Afzali, again housed in a military base, was remanded into custody after pleading guilty to intentionally exposing his genitals.

The Trump administration has already suspended Afghan refugee admissions after Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, a 27-year-old Afghan national who arrived in the U.S. in 2021 under the American Afghan Relocation Scheme, was arrested in Oklahoma for allegedly planning an Islamic State-inspired Election Day attack, involving stockpiling firearms, conspiring with a juvenile relative also brought in under the scheme, and aiming to target large gatherings of innocents.

In contrast to the action taken by President Trump, Labour merged the two major schemes for Afghans (the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme and the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy) to “streamline and unify the process” and are allowing even more family members to apply. Thousands and thousands more Afghans are due to arrive under this government despite vague claims that it will “eventually close”.

There is a politically viable solution to the problem. We could contract with a friendly Muslim country like Morocco, relocate these refugees there, and cover their costs at a fraction of providing them homes and lifelong social welfare in Britain. This would respect Islamic cultural ties, avoid the bunfight with NGOs and parliamentarians around forced returns to Taliban controlled Afghanistan, and crucially, protect our social housing and tax base from collapse. It would also keep the promise made to protect these Afghans from Taliban rule.

Britain is sacrificing itself for Tory fantasies about a Dad’s Army of Afghan allies, whose best long term prospect is probably to be even less integrated than Pakistani Mirpuris are, seeded across the country, and at extreme public expense.

This scheme must end now with those brought in rapidly cycled out of the country.