The ‘Boriswave’ could sweep Farage into Downing Street

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.

- SEAN O'GRADY

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.