We at The Independent are proud to have campaigned for justice for the Afghan heroes who were trained by British forces to fight alongside them against the Taliban. Although many of them were given sanctuary in the United Kingdom after the fall of Kabul four years ago, many were not, and the British government has had to be chivvied and harried into doing the right thing.
Our campaign has had its successes. An Afghan pilot who served with British forces, who fled to the UK in a small boat across the Channel and was threatened with deportation to Rwanda, was granted permission to stay here after five months of headlines in The Independent that mobilised MPs, former top brass in the military and even Joe Biden’s White House.
