Farage Demands Criminal Inquiry Into Johnson's Migration Legacy
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage plans to force Boris Johnson to testify under oath about migration policies that could cost British households £20,000 each.
A former Prime Minister faces potential criminal scrutiny for policy decisions made in office for the first time in British political history. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage announced plans to compel Boris Johnson to testify under penalty of perjury before a national inquiry examining whether migration policies enacted during his premiership amounted to criminal conduct.
The proposal positions Reform UK as the sole political vehicle for institutional reckoning that neither Labour nor the Conservatives have delivered. It represents the most serious attempt yet to hold government officials accountable for what advocates view as a deliberate policy failure that has financially devastated Britain.
Johnson and former Home Secretary Priti Patel would be required to testify under oath if Reform wins the next general election. Party sources told the Daily Express the inquiry would examine whether their gross negligence in office rose to criminal conduct.
Reform UK Home Affairs spokesman Zia Yusuf delivered the explosive announcement. "Boris Johnson perpetrated one of the biggest scandals in British history by throwing open our borders to millions who are now set to destroy the country's finances," Yusuf said.
The inquiry would scrutinize what Reform calls the "Boriswave" — 3.8 million long-term visas issued between January 2021 and June 2024. Between 1.6 million and 2.2 million migrants from that period will qualify for Indefinite Leave to Remain between 2026 and 2030, permanently altering Britain's demographic landscape.
Reform UK released a 21-page report claiming the migration surge will cost Britain £622.5 billion in real terms through 2085, equating to £20,000 per household. The party acknowledges its own discounted figure using Treasury methodology stands at £154 billion — significantly less than its undiscounted figure of £622.5 billion, which it says represents three times the annual NHS budget.
Economists have criticized Reform's methodology. Dr. Madeleine Sumption of the Oxford Migration Observatory called the analysis flawed for lacking standard financial forecasting procedures. Reform maintains the figures represent a fiscal catastrophe regardless of methodological disputes.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp dismissed the inquiry as political theatre. "This is a piece of cheap party political theatrics that will cost taxpayers millions to mask Reform's lack of actual policies or solutions," Philp told the Daily Express.
Philp served as Home Office minister during the period under investigation, undermining Conservative moral authority to criticize the proposal. The inquiry exposes the Conservative Party as both architect and critic of the same migration policies.
Deep fractures within the Conservative movement surfaced immediately. Suella Braverman, the former Home Secretary who defected to Reform UK, publicly supports the inquiry. Braverman claims she tried to stop migration but was blocked by Conservative leadership.
"I arrived at the Home Office in September 2022 when work and study visas already exceeded one million," Braverman said. "The Boriswave was flooding the country." Yusuf noted that Braverman had tweeted support, saying there's no-one in the country who would like this inquiry to happen more than her.
Nigel Farage defended Reform's newest members. "They tried from within to stop the disaster that really started properly in 2021," Farage said of Braverman and fellow defector Robert Jenrick. "That's why they resigned or were fired."
Reform UK proposes abolishing the Indefinite Leave to Remain system entirely. Farage would replace it with five-year renewable work visas and ban all welfare payments to non-citizens.
Labour's alternative extends waiting periods for Indefinite Leave to Remain to 10–15 years for most applicants and 20–30 years for those dependent on state support — an approach Reform dismisses as inadequate. "If over a couple of million people get indefinite leave to remain over the next 18 months, we will be putting around our necks an economic millstone that will be catastrophic," Farage warned.
The inquiry proposal represents a fundamental challenge to Britain's two-party system. It signals that political establishment self-regulation has failed and institutional reckoning now requires outside pressure.
"A Reform Government will launch a national inquiry to reveal exactly what happened and how," Yusuf declared. "Boris himself will be forced to testify, under penalty of perjury. He will be held to account."