There is still time for the Tories to do right by the hero Afghan pilot – but will they?

Editorial: The government’s moral authority in these matters is fatally undermined by its refusal to honour apparently sincere pledges offered to genuine asylum seekers

The airman fought alongside British and allied forces against the Taliban (Getty)

Nothing better exemplifies the paralysis in Britain’s migration system than the buck-passing, cowardly, callous treatment of the ex-Afghan Air Force pilot whose case has been taken up by The Independent.

He remains in limbo, after finally arriving in the UK on a boat – his only option – last November. He doesn’t know his future, and he is painfully conscious that if returns to his homeland he will almost certainly be tortured and killed by the Taliban.

Even the prime minister hasn’t responded to his pleas for asylum, despite his cause being championed by some of the most senior figures in His Majesty’s forces, the custodians of courage. The pilot, like many other Afghans, fought alongside British and allied forces during that long and pitiless struggle, prepared always to make the ultimate sacrifice. Yet now he sits, waiting and waiting, to see if his fate will be to be sent to Rwanda; or whether another nation that he fought for, the United States, will do the right thing for him and his family.

The manner in which the British authorities have broken promises and betrayed trust is shaming the nation. It is often argued by ministers, albeit sometimes disingenuously, that there is a clear distinction between economic migrants and genuine refugees. Very well – if we take them at their word, there can be no more genuine a refugee than someone who has, indirectly or directly, assisted the British in the Afghan war, and who has actually been accepted onto one or other of the special Afghan refugee and resettlement schemes.

Yet many of these people – former interpreters, guards, sponsored students and so on – have been left at risk in Pakistan, whence they fled, with no sign that the British government even recognises its moral and legal obligations towards them. Over a thousand eligible Afghans, holed up in hotels in Islamabad, are being asked to self-source accommodation in the UK – a practically impossible demand and an act that looks suspiciously like an attempt to prevent them travelling.

Increasingly, these genuine refugees stand at risk of maltreatment, or return to Afghanistan at the hands of the Pakistanis, themselves growing impatient. Now a former chief of the defence staff, General Sir David Richards, joins former senior armed forces personnel, parliamentarians and campaigners in an open letter, calling on Rishi Sunak not to “renege on the debt of honour” owed to former Afghan allies trapped in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The facts are plain, and represent a damning indictment of official inertia. In March, the minister for veterans, Johnny Mercer, gave an update in the Commons to “provide more detail in due course on plans for supporting people yet to arrive”. Some four months later, only two Afghans have been relocated from Islamabad under the Afghan relocations and assistance policy (Arap).

Another 2,725 qualified Afghan personnel remain in grave danger in Afghanistan awaiting movement to third countries (almost exclusively Pakistan). With official flights from Pakistan (inexplicably) ended, and resettlements to the UK seemingly stalled, concern about the relocation of eligible Afghans is mounting.

Hence the letter, which the prime minister must respond to promptly and in good faith. Dismayed at the bureaucratic inertia and dodging, military and politically expert figures such as Lord Richards, General Sir John McColl and Dan Jarvis MP ask only that “a central focus is established either independently, or in the Cabinet Office, with real authority, in order to bring government efforts together”.

Only Mr Sunak is in a position to cut the Gordian knot and force action on a cross-departmental basis. Sadly, however, the Home Office is presently preoccupied with playing a game of parliamentary ping-pong with the House of Lords over the Illegal Migration Bill. It has fallen, ironically, to the unelected Lords to assert and protect universal human rights – supposedly guaranteed in the UK under international law – against ministers who think passing ever-more draconian and unrealistic legislation is going to solve the crisis. It hasn’t before, and this bill will just as surely fail in its objectives.

In the meantime, the government’s moral authority in these matters is fatally undermined by its refusal to honour apparently sincere pledges offered to indisputably genuine asylum seekers from Afghanistan, including the Afghan fighter pilot presently marooned in a British hotel.

The prime minister knows what he should do. Will he?