Angry Boris Johnson has defended himself against claims that he was responsible for a big rise in immigration.
The former prime minister denied he was to blame for what Nigel Farage has called a “Boriswave” of immigration while he was in Downing Street.
Instead Mr Johnson criticised the immigration record of fellow Conservative former PMs Rishi Sunak and David Cameron.
And in a mark of his frosty relations with the Reform leader, Mr Johnson refused to refer to him by name.
Mr Johnson said his plan to stop the boats by sending illegal migrants to Rwanda would have worked but Mr Sunak had failed to make a success of the scheme.
And he said Mr Cameron was wrong to declare a specific target for cutting immigration.
Mr Johnson, who was forced to resign as prime minister in 2022, became heated when challenged over Mr Farage’s claim that he was responsible for a “Boriswave” of immigration.
Mr Johnson said: “My mandate was to take back control and that’s what I did.”
Criticising Mr Sunak’s decision to call an early election in 2024, he continued: “Rwanda was the only way to get people back. I don’t know why we didn’t implement Rwanda. Why did we go to the country before we got that done? That was a mistake.”
Urging Keir Starmer to revive the Rwanda scheme he said: “It was and is a very good policy. It would have solved the small boats thing.”
Mr Johnson has defended his record on immigration and distanced himself from the so-called “Boriswave” of migrants.
The former prime minister blamed Rishi Sunak for failing to send illegal migrants to Rwanda, and suggested Sir Keir Starmer should revive the plan.
He said Mr Sunak had failed to highlight his success in delivering Brexit because his administration was “too busy campaigning on compulsory maths A-level and banning cigars.”
In an interview with the Daily Telegraph, Mr Johnson became animated when pressed over Mr Farage’s remark last month about what he called a “Boriswave” of immigration to the UK during Mr Johnson’s term in office.
Mr Johnson said his government “didn’t know how many had come in,” because of “the system we inherited.”
He went on: “We didn’t know how many EU students had come back. We didn’t know how many people were going to take up either the Ukrainian scheme or the Hong Kong scheme. And those numbers were very high, but we now have a system that enables us to have zero that was not legally possible before.
“Whatever you say about the government I lead, I make two points: we restored full democratic legal control over our laws and our borders. And if the people choose, we can have zero immigration into the UK.
“We took back legal control. Yes, it’s true that if you look at the immediate post-Covid year, we had several things coming together at once. The Ukrainians, the Hong Kong, Chinese, and, and a load of EU students coming back in to finish their courses. What people don’t look at is the previous year when we had the lowest ever.
“Every single government department was saying that they couldn’t be sure that the crops were going to be picked in the fields, or the pigs were going to be slaughtered in time for the pigs in blankets for Christmas. Or the fuel stations. Do you remember this?”
Refusing to call Mr Farage by his name, he mocked the Reform leader’s stance on Russia’s president Vladimir Putin and the cause of the Ukraine war.
The Reform leader thought Putin was an “alright stand up guy,” said Mr Johnson, who added: “Anyone who thinks war started because of Nato encroaching is out of their mind.”
Mr Johnson suggested David Cameron was wrong to promise to reduce legal immigration down to the “tens of thousands.”
“Did you ever hear me saying that during the Brexit campaign? The answer is: No you didn’t,” he said. “My mandate was to take back control and that’s what I did.”
Net immigration quadrupled from an average of about 200,000 a year to 789,000 in Mr Johnson’s last year as prime minister, with the “Boriswave” totalling about 2.6 million people.
Sir Keir Starmer has also attacked Mr Johnson over the “Boriswave”, while linking small boats crossing the English Channel to Brexit and dubbing them “Farage boats”.
