BREAKING: For two years, a government superinjunction prevented the public, and even Parliament, from knowing that the Ministry of Defence had accidentally disclosed the personal data of nearly 25,000 Afghans linked to UK forces. Welcome to the birthplace of parliamentary democracy in 2025. The secrecy concealed a costly emergency resettlement scheme and the rehousing of thousands in hotels and military sites around the country — all without public consultation. A Whitehall briefing note circulated to ministers in September 2024, two months after the Southport murders, noted that the riot hotspots were largely in areas with high numbers of Afghan arrivals. Another briefing, sent in July 2025 — just days before the injunction was lifted — advised officials to prepare for a backlash in communities facing stretched public services. Now, finally, we know the truth, after the High Court lifted the gagging order. In his ruling, Mr Justice Chamberlain warned that it “completely shut down the ordinary mechanisms of accountability which operate in a democracy”, creating what he described as a “scrutiny vacuum”. There’s more on this extraordinary case here: freespeechunion.org/government-imp
