Matt Goodwin erupts at ‘enormous cover-up’ as thousands of Afghans sent to Britain in secret scheme

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Matt Goodwin erupts at ‘enormous cover-up’ as thousands of Afghans sent to Britain in secret scheme
Ben Chapman

By Ben Chapman


Published: 15/07/2025

- 20:13

An unprecedented superinjunction has been lifted, shedding light on a programme established after a major data breach

GB News star Matt Goodwin has launched a scathing attack on what he describes as an "enormous cover-up" following revelations about a secret Government scheme to relocate thousands of Afghans to Britain.

Speaking on GB News, Matt expressed outrage at the lack of transparency surrounding the operation.


"If the UK state can do this, and this by all accounts is an enormous cover-up, if they can bring in thousands of Afghans into our country while gagging the media and allocating billions of pounds, while having no democratic vote, no transparency, then what on Earth is the state doing on top of that?" he said.

The scheme emerged after an unprecedented superinjunction was lifted, revealing details of a programme established following a major data breach.

Matt Goodwin

GB NEWS

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Matt Goodwin erupted at the 'enormous cover-up'

The secret programme was established after personal details of nearly 19,000 Afghan applicants and their families were inadvertently released in early 2022. The data breach, which affected more than 33,000 applicants according to High Court documents, wasn't discovered by the Ministry of Defence until August 2023.

Defence Secretary John Healey told MPs that approximately 4,500 affected individuals "are in Britain or in transit... at a cost of around 400 million pounds". The Mirror reported the scheme's total value at £850 million.

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The breach included sensitive information about MPs and senior military officers who had supported applications from Afghan soldiers who worked alongside British forces.

The data was partially published on Facebook before authorities became aware of the security lapse.

Afghans during a mass evacuation

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A secret scheme saw thousands of Afghans resettled in Britain after a data leak

Matt drew sharp comparisons between the Afghan relocation operation and the Government's stance on deportations.

"There are many in Britain today who want illegal migrants in this country deported. We are often told that you can't do that, it's too complex, it's too complicated," he said.

"Here we have the UK state executing the most complex evacuation program in peacetime with no one knowing about it and then they tell us it's too complicated to remove illegal migrants from Britain and foreign criminals, I find that logic now completely absurd."

He questioned what other government activities might be concealed from public view. "What else is going on that we don't know about? I find the scale of this astonishing," Goodwin stated.

Goodwin demanded immediate accountability for the operation. "This is an enormous cover-up. The state has covered this up with no accountability. Heads should roll. I want to know who is responsible and who is getting fired," he declared.

He proposed that the Prime Minister redirect foreign aid funding to cover the scheme's costs. "Maybe, just maybe, Keir Starmer could do the decent thing and say 'to make up for the £5-7 billion, here's what we will do, we won't spend another £13 billion on foreign aid. We're not going to spend all this money helping people from outside Britain because we think British taxpayers have paid enough.'"

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