Interpreters working for the British Government and the British Army in Iraq risk their lives every day. Whether or not their duties put them in danger from bullets or roadside bombs, they are demonised and remorselessly hunted by extremist militias who accuse them of colluding with the enemy. Some have already been subjected to unspeakable torture and summary execution as a result, and the risk to interpreters and other Iraqi employees on British bases will only increase as the British role in Basra moves from one of active engagement to “overwatch”.

If anyone has a compelling case for asylum, these people do, and it is further strengthened by the British Government’s responsibility towards them as an employer. Yet the Home Office has made no contingency plans for them and issued no special advice to immigration officers. One interpreter who wrote a personal plea for help to Tony Blair was brushed off with a suggestion that he consult the UK’s entry clearance website. Downing Street and the Home Office must move fast to prevent the fate of Britain’s bravest Iraqi allies becoming a national scandal.

The 91 locally hired interpreters currently working for the British military in Iraq are strongly supported in their requests for a fair hearing from the immigration authorities by the soldiers who daily depend on them. It is not hard to see why. Some will have known as friends and colleagues the victims on whom we report today, among them Haidr al-Mtury, murdered with a bullet to the head after having holes drilled through his hands and knees and acid poured on his face; and Abu Kiffah, forced to telephone his wife on his mobile phone so that she could hear his final moments.

It is true that for another 63 interpreters hired from countries other than Iraq the outlook is marginally less terrifying. At the end of their contracts they can, in principle, go home to relative safety. But it would be callous folly to dismiss as exaggeration the claims from Iraqi interpreters that their lives are at stake. The Danish authorities have accepted this. All 22 interpreters used by its military contingent in Iraq were given the choice of evacuation to Denmark or a third country with their immediate families, or substantial cash compensation. Some 200 Iraqis were airlifted to Denmark last month as a result.

Spain offered its Iraqi employees asylum before withdrawing its troops from the country in 2004. Poland has said of its local employees that “we will not leave these people alone”. In the US, plans are in place to admit 7,000 Iraqi refugees from later this year, and Congress is to debate legislation that could admit another 60,000. The British response has been pitiful by comparison: in the absence of any special arrangements, Britain’s Iraqi interpreters must somehow reach British soil under their own steam if they want asylum, and then apply for it. Each case is then “judged on its merits”.

This may sound scrupulously fair on paper. In practice it requires those who have risked their lives for Britain’s mission in Iraq to apply to the British Embassy in Jordan for a visitor’s visa, knowing that nine in ten such applications have hitherto failed. If lucky, they must then take their chances with an asylum system that so far refuses to recognise their unique circumstances. The Home Office has a simple choice: to act honourably, as this small, brave group has in working for peace in Iraq, or to force them to the back of the asylum queue and hang its head in shame.