Reform UK leader Nigel Farage yesterday unveiled his party’s new plans to tackle legal immigration, an area that he claims there is currently ‘too little debate’ about.
Speaking alongside Reform’s former chairman and current head of the party’s Department for Government Efficiency, Farage unveiled his party’s toughest immigration policies yet, at a time when most Brits believe the current government is failing to keep immigration under control, pledging to bar foreign nationals from claiming benefits and making the path to British citizenship harder.
However, the most significant of Reform’s proposals is a pledge to abolish Indefinite Leave to Remain, which allows foreign nationals to stay in the UK without any time limit, free to study, work, or operate a business.
Farage and Yusuf promised to scrap this and replace it with a new system of 5-year renewable work visas. According to Yusuf these visas will be far harder to obtain than current work visas; people with a criminal record will be ineligible, the salary threshold will be raised, and the required English language proficiency will increase.
Furthermore, the pair pledged to make the path to citizenship harder, by raising the length of time one must be resident in the UK to apply for a British passport from 6 years to 7.
A notable element of the press conference was Farage and Yusuf’s repeated use of the term ‘Boriswave’ – a colloquial term coined by the online right to refer to the record-breaking levels of non-EU immigration to the UK post-pandemic, beginning under Boris Johnson’s leadership and continuing into Rishi Sunak’s.
Net migration to the UK skyrocketed from 224,000 in the year ending June 2019 to 634,000 in the year ending June 2022, and more than 900,000 in the year ending June 2023, with the vast majority of new arrivals were from non-EU countries, such as India, Pakistan and Nigeria. In fact, despite falling by nearly half since 2023, the latest provisional net migration figure of 431,000 is still higher than any year prior to 2021.
Farage described this as the ‘greatest betrayal of democratic wishes’ in living memory, referencing the fact that in 2019 Boris Johnson actually campaigned on reducing immigration, whilst Yusuf claimed that the country is yet to feel the full detriment of the ‘Boriswave.’
According to him and Farage, once the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of new arrivals acquire indefinite leave to remain, and thus become eligible for certain benefits and public services, the British taxpayer will face an enormous expense; Farage claims the cost will be £230 billion, whilst Yusuf claims it could be much higher, accusing the government of refusing to release data that will show the true extent of the issue.
The pair confirmed that the abolition of ILR will apply to those already in the country, and that the changes will lead to ‘hundreds of thousands of people having to apply and ultimately losing their settled status in the UK.’ He added that those who don’t leave voluntarily will be subject to immigration enforcement.
However, they recognised that this could have a negative impact on key sectors such as health and social care that depend heavily on migrant labour, and thus announced the introduction of an Acute Skill Shortage Visa, by which a limited number of visas will be made available for people working in sectors with high shortages of staff.
Yusuf also added that under a Reform government, entrepreneurs and investors would still be welcome in Britain, and therefore they would increase the number of routes available for ‘those willing to commit significant capital to our economy.’
The reaction to Farage and Yusuf’s announcement has been polarising. Whilst Rupert Lowe, the independent MP for Great Yarmouth who left Reform amidst unproven allegations of threatening behaviour, described it as ‘very good news,’ other politicians were less impressed. Newly elected Green Party Leader Zack Polanski called on his supporters to ‘reject’ figures who use immigration as a way to distract people from ‘talking about inequality,’ whilst Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp accused Reform of copying Conservative plans to ban migrants who claim benefits, live in social housing, or have a criminal record from settling indefinitely in the UK.
Meanwhile, Chancellor Rachel Reeves has claimed that Reform’s claim that abolishing ILR would save £230 billion is inaccurate, with Labour arguing that their figures came from a report published by the Centre for Policy Studies, who said that their own cost estimates ‘should no longer be used.’
Elsewhere in yesterday’s press conference, Farage said that the UK’s recent recognition of Palestinian statehood was ‘completely wrong,’ and was ‘rewarding terrorists.’ However, he refused to say whether he would reverse the decision – that has also recently been taken by France, Canada and Australia – if he were elected Prime Minister, an event that continues to look like a real possibility, as his party continues to top polls.
