We need to recognise the positive asset refugees are to the UK

Editorial: We also must ponder, with genuine humility, about the positive contribution the country might make to the lives of the Afghan people in the future

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The catastrophe in Afghanistan continues. The British authorities have shown “gross negligence”, Nick Thomas-Symonds, the shadow home secretary, argues. As he rightly says, we now have “an obligation to show moral leadership in offering sanctuary to people left in such a dire situation”.

We report the chaos over the treatment of the Afghan asylum seekers and our political columnist Andrew Grice has explained that while all should welcome the government’s promise of a resettlement scheme along the lines of the Syrian refugee programme in 2015, it goes nowhere near far enough. It is a plan unlikely to fill the government’s critics with confidence.

Much damage has been done, and the government’s past performance on the treatment of refugees suggests that it will take a total change of mindset to bring some order to the chaos, and some hope to the victims of disaster.

That change of mindset should include the core acceptance that these refugees can be a great asset to this country. We have a moral obligation to offer sanctuary, but we also have an opportunity to show that the UK can develop the talent that has come to our shores. The more we invest in the human capital of all the people in the UK, the greater the return for our society in the years to come. That investment should be made in the refugees just as it should be made in everyone else.

There will be other ways in which the UK can help the people of Afghanistan. At the moment it is hard to glimpse any such opportunities but eventually, these will become clearer. We should listen to Afghan people, here and at home. We should use the knowledge we have accumulated from work on the ground over the past two decades.

There will eventually be a chance, subject to security concerns, to fully resume humanitarian work that charities and aid agencies have been performing.

Above all, however, we must be honest with ourselves: the set of policies that the US and UK have followed for the past 20 years has ended in failure. We must learn from that.

We also must ponder, with genuine humility, about the positive contribution the country might make to the lives of the Afghan people in the future – just as we should acknowledge and welcome the positive contribution that Afghan refugees can bring to the UK.