Do we still have an arrangement with Rwanda?
It might be our mistake and we do have some responsibility, but there still needs to be vetting. How many attacks on coalition troops by Afghan “allies”? Actually I can answer that, 49.
The Taliban’s reply
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/07/15/taliban-we-had-kill-list-all-along-hunting-them-down/
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They’re opportunists who managed to get their name on a list our own government put together of people we know helped us when we were there?
I mean, if they’ve managed to swindle their way onto a list the MOD drafted several years ago, fair play to them.
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Considering how many were left behind it’s probably better to take the hit & have them over.
If they come through this route they can be tagged assessed & resettled within set area and monitored as much as resources allow.
It’s the undocumented that are the bigger issues…..
We’ve been doing that since the fall of Kabul anyway. First we moved them into hotels and more recently into the privately rented sector, I did an employment case this year about staff in a Local Authority resettlement team. Local authorities had funding to identify private rentals willing to accept a lower than market rent, in return for a three year rental agreement where the council would do the management and upkeep of the rental. The council would support the families with translation and access to services to make them self-sufficient, so that they can carry on looking after themselves when the funding commitment ends. It’s been pretty successful too.
I’m always astounding at how many times the political Right of the UK manage to come out with the argument that they believe in leaving allies behind.
Is that par for the course anyway? Everyone I know with investment properties rents to the council, you don’t get as much but it’s guaranteed and they take responsibility for upkeep.
Were they allies? Or was it the enemy of my enemy is my friend? Or even more likely “there isn’t much work and I speak English”.
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There’s an element of the new right who take an isolationist MAGA-type stance. They claim to be patriotic and proud of our armed forces, but they’d quite happily turn one of the world’s greatest blue water navies into a coastguard in the English Channel and would turn our expeditionary forces into some kind dad’s army home defence force, more akin to the Irish Defence Force than what we have today.
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Considering the numbers we have these days that’s closer to reality than people would like to think.
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John Healey admitted that most did not support UK forces.
There is a 7 billion uncommited expenditure to pay for this that was in scrutinised by parliament
Afghans commit sexual offences at 20x the time of British citizens
It is well documented that Afghans would repeatedly rape young children and coalition forces would be prevented from intervening - read any book about the war e.g. Changing of the Guard by Simon Akam, 3 Para by Patrick Bishop
They are from a completely alien culture and should not be welcome here
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Source: This one guy who calls him self a think tank then published bait statistic posters which are incredibly hard to fact check.
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Dancing boys of Afghanistan, something coalition forces were prevented from stopping. Banned by the Taliban.
Then there is the Casey report regarding CSA in the UK which was published recently.
The main thing was that Remain never campaigned on why it was GOOD for us to be in the EU. Instead, they focussed on why it was bad to leave. When Leave launched the bus with £350m a day etc, in stead of saying “actually the EU spends £150m a day in the UK”, they actually said “this is a lie, we only send them £175m”. Remain relied on project fear, which is why they lost.
I voted leave BTW, and I would again given a second chance. For me, it was about being Soverign - our Parliament is 1000s of years old, we make our own laws and we deomcratically elect our own law makers. The fact that we were in a system whereby 15 people elected by Greece (say) could turn around and question the laws we enacted in the UK Parliament, and we were held to their decision, that was not the position we should have been in.
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Leave’s arguments relied on emotions (and dishonesty, but that’s a different conversation), Remain’s arguments relied on logic.
Unfortunately it turns out that just over half of the people voting don’t like logic.
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I deal with people’s finances every day and logic doesn’t come into it most of the time with money either.
Emotion vs logic means emotion is always going to win, you’re dealing with people and the how it feels is always more powerful than what makes sense.
Someone I spoke to a couple of years ago had enough money from his redundancy to pay off his mortgage (at 1.something percent) versus simple savings account giving more than 3%. Would have been hundreds of pounds better off by keeping the money in savings but the emotion of not having a mortgage was more important than saving/earning money.
Sorry don’t agree with that - remains arguments should have been on logic & pragmatics but they went with fear & arrogance.
You had a whole bunch of celebrities writing an open letter to the times like it was 1850 about why we they need to stay & treating like a zero sum game of “for the EU to be good , UK must be bad”
If someone had sat down & addressed why people were wanting to leave & listened it might have gone the other way.
Even then after the vote if the EU had been pragmatic & calm & tried to make it win win then there wouldn’t been as much animosity.
Leave ran a campaign based on hyperbole, remain ran the a campaign based on fear & belittling of people.
I think in the end it was just over half of people agreeing that they preferred the local clowns to the overseas ones….
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Both sides were dishonest: it’s just that Remain’s lies were so ridiculous no one believed them.
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Was looking into the tickets for next years RIAT, as they are now available (yes, i know… the show has barely started this year, and tickets for 2026 are already on sale…).
Starting in 2026, you now have to pay a £15 charge per vehicle.
It’s about time that RAFAC put a rider on assisting; free access to RAFAC cadets and staff, and car parking if that’s coming in from next year.
Already a rediculous price 
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My understanding is that Scout leaders accompanying their groups go free (at least on the Friday) but RAFAC have to pay to accompany Cadets. Which seems a bit odd.