The politics of immigration may well destroy the Conservative party. If so, the “Boriswave” will be a prime cause.
The Boriswave is the surge in immigration, mostly from outside the EU, unleashed by Johnson as part of his Brexit deal. This led to net migration rising from 184,000 in 2019 to a staggering and unprecedented 906,000 in 2023.
Changes in policy at the very end of the Sunak government, notably the curbing of the rights of dependants to come to Britain with immigrants on social care and student visas, have started to bring this number down. But together with the “small boats”—the surge in irregular cross-Channel immigration, which reached 45,774 in 2022—the Boriswave made migration a central issue in politics and has led directly to the resurgence of Nigel Farage and Reform.
Kemi Badenoch, the already beleaguered leader of the Tory party, cannot escape the Boriswave. She spends virtually all her time talking about immigration and disowning the legacy of the last Conservative government. The main beneficiary is Farage, who conflates the Boriswave with everything else that has gone wrong over the last 10 years, eviscerating the Tory brand and attracting huge support among ex-Tory voters.
The Boriswave even gives Farage a plausible argument—on the right at least—as to why Brexit failed. Instead of being on the defensive about the trade and economic losses of Brexit, Farage reverts daily to the failure to “take back control” of immigration, where both Badenoch and Starmer vocally agree with him but then have to justify their own record on immigration.
Reform is now ahead of the Tories in most polls and vying with Labour, whose poll ratings have plummeted since July’s general election. Farage’s personal ratings are far ahead of Badenoch’s, and he is challenging Starmer for the status of most popular leader.
Tory strategists fear there could now be a total Conservative collapse in the face of Reform’s gains, with wholesale defections of councillors and MPs to Farage’s party. There is no appreciable ideological barrier between the two parties, and Farage is highly popular among Tory voters. So the crisis is existential for Badenoch, and she gives every impression of being clueless about how to respond.
This May’s local elections, and any parliamentary byelections in the coming months, could be the trigger for such a Tory collapse. If this happens, Badenoch may be toast, and Farage could very quickly engineer a coup and a complete takeover of the remnants of the Tory party.
In the short term this Reform–Tory struggle gives an opening to Starmer. But if the right were to reunite behind Farage and Reform, Labour would be highly vulnerable. So surprise, surprise, Starmer too has put the Tory immigration record at the centre of his campaigning. He now has to show he can deliver results in cutting the immigration numbers dramatically, and then changing the subject entirely to move off Farage’s turf. Although what he can change it to that works for Labour, with the economy and growth so weak, isn’t obvious.
