Mahmood considers talks with Taliban to deport failed Afghan asylum seekers
The home secretary has signaled Britain may try to negotiate with the Taliban to send unsuccessful refugees back to Afghanistan for the first time since the fall of Kabul.
Shabana Mahmood said Britain was “watching very closely” what other countries planned to do, amid reports that European countries were planning to investigate talks with the Taliban about possible deportations.
Afghans were the most common nationality arriving in the UK by small boat, with 6,360 people arriving in the UK by small boat in the year ending June 2025, an 18 per cent increase on the previous year.
Between 2022 and 2024, around 30,000 Afghan citizens sought asylum in the UK.
The British government does not recognize the Taliban administration, which prevents the return of those who are not granted refugee status.
But speaking to reporters, Ms Mahmood said: “We are following very closely what is going on in terms of other countries, whether European partners or others, and the discussions they are having with other countries, including Afghanistan.
“I won’t get into the additional discussions that are going on within the government – we’ll have more to say on that in the future – but of course we’re watching closely and working with our partners in terms of the efforts that we all need to make collectively to try to get agreements.
“I’m not including or excluding that. I’m not going to make a continuing comment on additional conversations that are taking place.”
Such a move, which would amount to an active reversal of current policy, would spark outrage from humanitarian groups.
Just last month, the United Nations warned that Afghanistan was a “human rights graveyard” that practiced “gender discrimination” through torture and corporal punishment, where women and girls over the age of 11 were excluded from formal education and barred from most paid employment.
But the government faces growing pressure to take tough action to reduce immigration, in the face of growing public anger over the issue and the growing political threat posed by Reformation UK.
More than 6,000 migrants have reached the UK after making the journey so far this year; that number is down 36 percent from this time last year.
As part of a bid to step up immigration pressure, the home secretary signed a new £662m three-year deal with France on Thursday; The government hopes French police will remove hundreds of migrants from French beaches every year.
The latest developments come despite the Supreme Court ruling this week that families stranded in Afghanistan were given the go-ahead to seek asylum in the UK and that their release had been stopped despite the defense secretary’s promise that Britain would honor its debt to them.
Afghans who have been deemed fit to move to the UK because their previous work with the British are no longer helping them escape the Taliban-ruled country, according to lawyers and caseworkers supporting those stuck in limbo.
The allegations emerged in a case involving two Afghans who were approved to relocate to the UK and were named FRY and BNM1 to protect their safety. They are challenging the Ministry of Defense (MoD) over delays in their release.
At a hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice on Wednesday, plaintiff FRY’s barrister Tim Owen KC told the judge “it appears that relocations from Afghanistan have been frozen.”
Resettlement plans for Afghans to come to the UK following the Taliban takeover were abruptly shut down in July last year, just before a judge lifted an unprecedented Ministry of Defense injunction used to conceal a serious data breach affecting thousands of people applying for Afghan resettlement programmes.
In a statement to parliament after news of the data breach emerged, Defense Secretary John Healey pledged to honor invitations already made to “any persons still in Afghanistan and their immediate families”, adding: “When this nation makes a promise, we must keep that promise.”
