There’s nothing so “ex” as an ex-prime minister, so they say, and they usually suffer a steep decline in their reputation as soon as they leave office. In the case of Boris Johnson, his popularity, once so undeniable, has not yet reached its nadir, which, post-Partygate, lying to the Commons, and various Tory sleaze scandals, is saying something.
Today he stands accused by Nigel Farage of a historic betrayal of Brexit and the demands of the British people as expressed in the 2016 EU referendum, and in numerous elections and opinion polls since – especially when Johnson was in power. In Farage’s words: “Reform will deal with the Boriswave, the biggest betrayal of voters’ trust in modern times.”
The charge is a fair one, actually, on that narrow point. The graphs don’t lie. There was a spike, a wave, of non-EU immigration when Johnson became prime minister – the “Boriswave”. As Farage said, Leavers didn’t vote for that. Johnson happily gave the impression, shall we say, that Brexit would allow the UK to “take back control” of immigration policy and, thus, reduce it massively. Johnson may plead he never said anything explicit about that; but let us be quite sure that if he had mentioned during all those intense debates a decade ago that a couple of million people from outside the EU would soon be turning up he would not have won that referendum – or become prime minister.
As Theresa May said when she took over in 2016, cutting immigration was the whole point of Brexit so far as many people were concerned, misguided or not. Well, after she was pushed out by Johnson, the UK experienced a net inward flow of historic proportions, as EU rules fell away and the new, much-vaunted “Australian-style points system” was introduced by Johnson and his home secretary, Priti Patel. So far from stemming migration it rocketed. Almost all of this “Boriswave” was completely legal, orderly, documented and indeed encouraged by the then government – led by Johnson. Net immigration quadrupled from an average of about 200,000 a year to 789,000 in Boris Johnson’s last year as prime minister. In all, the Boriswave amounted to maybe 2.6 million people, albeit including a lot of students. Now, as the first of the wave’s five-year work visas are coming to an end, many are going to be applying for settled status in the UK, with a hope to be granted “indefinite leave to remain”. Farage says 800,000 are about to do so – and he will rescind it for all of them. Some may stay under the much tougher rules on salaries and proficiency in English with renewed visas; most will be asked to go.
The terrible mistake Johnson made was to tell people all through the referendum a decade ago and after that his “Australian-style points system” would slash the numbers coming in, when he either knew or didn’t care that the opposite would happen. The old EU “free movement” regime would be ended, so the British could set out their own rules. They would, he and Patel suggested, be strict – but he was always careful never to put a figure on it. Wise heads at the time wondered just what he really thought about migration. His record as a liberal Mayor of London suggested that he wasn’t bothered about immigration and race in the way others were and he loved the vibrant multicultural enterprising capital. He was happy to pretend to change his mind to win the referendum and later get elected, as ever, but now he and his party are paying the price for his clumsy attempt at subterfuge. Farage has rumbled him, and is destroying him and the Tories all over again.
It’s worth mentioning that the Reform UK policy is unworkable, and deeply damaging in economic terms, and that the Boriswave was and is of great benefit to the country. In due course they may become British citizens, and deservedly. To most economists, they are a net contributor to national income, pay their taxes, pay for NHS treatment and are useful members of society. To Reform UK they are a growing burden on the British. This is what has been infuriating Farage, to the point where he wants to reverse the Boriswave and start kicking these folk – here legally, don’t forget – out of the UK. Meanwhile, under a Reform government (words that are painful to type), without full British citizenship they won’t even be eligible for benefits, no matter how much tax they pay, even though most “dependants” of visa-holders do work and their in-work benefits are there to incentivise everyone to make work pay and take jobs and work harder, whatever their immigration status.
Such are the arguments about the policy. In raw political terms, what Farage is doing is making what was once the Conservatives’ most potent political star – Johnson – into an even greater liability, and especially to those who expected so much from him. He is berating the Tories for Johnson’s great immigration deception – and they only have themselves to blame. Johnson is now a great big blond electoral albatross.
Those 2016 Leave and 2019 “Boris Tories” who were entranced by him know already that he betrayed them during Covid because of Partygate, and they can see with their own eyes that he didn’t “level up” communities in the North, the Midlands and in the coastal towns of England that had been “left behind”. He did not “build back better”. He raised their taxes. He did “get Brexit done”, but not in the way he had led them to believe. He did not “take back control” of immigration. Far from it.
It makes enormous electoral sense for Farage to rake all this up, and to pin it onto Johnson and the Tories. For one thing it makes sure Reform supporters don’t get any ideas about Johnson leading them and “uniting the right”. Johnson needs to be vilified. There’s also an obvious electoral dividend. The Reform leader has for decades been expert at exploiting grievances, and identifying scapegoats. His script is predictable. Your taxes are hiked up and public services get worse, he argues, not because Brexit depressed investment, trade and economic growth (which is the truth), but because all these supposedly scrounging foreigners turned up – 800,000 – who supposedly don’t work and never will, and who are such a drain that they’re sending Britain bankrupt. And who let them in? Who betrayed you? Treated you like fools? Why, that fraud Boris Johnson and the Conservatives. It’s all very disingenuous on the part of Farage, but if Johnson had actually done in 2020 to 2022 what he said, or implied, in 2015 and 2016 he would do, then Farage would not be able to make these outlandish claims in 2025 and on into the next general election.
Farage knows how to confound his opponents. Within the Tory front bench there has been low-key friction between the Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, who probably agrees with Farage; and Patel, who resents being attacked for her record as home secretary. It perfectly illustrates their wider dilemma – disown their recent past, or defend it? Condemn the Boriswave or justify it? Criticise Boris or honour his service? For his party, Boris Johnson is the malign gift that just keeps on giving.
