Stop the Boriswave

Overview

This document sets out Reform UK’s analysis of the fiscal impact of migrants who arrived between 2021 and 2025, and proposes a policy response to what it calls the “Boriswave”. The analysis models the lifetime fiscal costs of cohorts whom the Home Office expects will receive Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) between 2026 and 2030, using three settlement scenarios and a 3.5% discount rate for one set of figures and undiscounted real‑terms totals for another. The report identifies differing fiscal profiles by migrant route, and aggregates these into a headline lifetime cost for the cohort. On the basis of that costing exercise, the policy proposals are to abolish ILR, rescind existing ILR grants, and replace ILR with a new five‑year renewable visa subject to higher salary thresholds, stricter character and language requirements, biometric checks, and new specialist routes. Reform UK also proposes to raise the minimum residence period for British citizenship to seven years, to create an Acute Skills Shortage Visa tied to training places for British workers, and to exclude certain schemes such as BN(O) and the Ukrainian schemes from the changes. The suggested legal route is primary legislation to abolish ILR, with new visa categories and thresholds put in place through the Immigration Rules and implemented by transitional provisions “on a staggered and orderly basis”. The document further asserts that public international law and human‑rights frameworks that currently limit removal powers would be overturned, by leaving the European Convention on Human Rights, repealing the Human Rights Act, and passing specific domestic legislation.

Key commitments

• Abolish Indefinite Leave to Remain entirely, meaning no new ILR grants and rescinding existing ILR status for current holders. Reform will abolish ILR as an immigration category completely, meaning no new awards and those currently holding it will have it rescinded. (page 38)
• Replace ILR with a five‑year renewable visa having considerably stricter criteria, requiring current ILR holders to reapply for visas that do not offer recourse to welfare. Reform will replace ILR a with a 5-year renewable visa, subject to considerably stricter criteria, bringing the UK in line with comparators like the UAE. Anyone currently with ILR will need to reapply for visas that do not offer recourse to welfare. (page 38)
• Set much higher salary thresholds for the new visa routes, with the right to bring dependants tied to thresholds above median UK earnings, and base renewal on verified earnings over a five‑year period. Much higher salary thresholds (based on a verified job offer or averaged over the 5-year period in case of renewal), with the right to bring dependants tied to thresholds that will be above median UK earnings. (page 38)
• Introduce stricter ‘good character’ checks covering deception, financial and tax misconduct and criminal convictions, to be more rigorously checked using biometric information, and raise the required standard of English. Stricter rules around good character, covering deception (around their visa application), financial misconduct, tax compliance and criminal convictions, all of which will be more rigorously checked via biometric information. A much higher standard of English. (page 38)
• Create an Acute Skills Shortage Visa for critical national sectors such as care, and require that for each visa issued a commensurate training place for a British worker is created. There will also be an Acute Skills Shortage Visa available for those working in national critical sectors such as care. For each of these visas issued, a commensurate training place for a British worker will be created, (page 38)
• Increase the minimum qualifying period for British citizenship from current rules to seven years. Reform will also increase the minimum qualifying period for British citizenship to 7 years. (page 38)
• Change the UK’s international and domestic human‑rights framework by leaving the European Convention on Human Rights, repealing the Human Rights Act, and passing the Illegal Migration (Mass Deportation) Bill. Reform is already committed to leaving the ECHR (and derogating from or leaving other international conventions that impede border security), repealing the Human Rights Act and passing the Illegal Migration (Mass Deportation) Bill. (page 39)

What it would cost

The document provides detailed quantified estimates for the lifetime fiscal impact of migrants expected to receive ILR between 2026 and 2030. Its headline table gives three scenarios: Low -£530.8bn undiscounted and -£130.4bn discounted, Central -£622.2bn undiscounted and -£155.5bn discounted, and High -£699.3bn undiscounted and -£174.7bn discounted. It also reports route‑specific aggregates, for example family visa holders £186bn undiscounted and £43bn discounted, students £167bn undiscounted and £30.9bn discounted, and a BNO cohort £27.9bn undiscounted and £7bn discounted. Those figures rest on Home Office ILR forecasts, ONS tax‑and‑benefit tables, Migration Advisory Committee findings, assumed wage trajectories (including a 0.7% real annual rise for low‑wage workers), a 3.5% Green Book discount rate for the discounted series, and specific per‑person capital assumptions such as a £20,000 one‑off capital cost used in one calculation. The document does not present costings for implementing the proposed policy package itself, nor for enforcement, transitional administration, litigation or the fiscal effects of repealing international obligations; it also does not identify any dedicated funding source for delivering the policy changes.

How it would be delivered

The document says primary legislation would be used to abolish ILR and that new visa categories and thresholds would be implemented through the Immigration Rules. It names the Home Secretary and the Home Office contextually, and notes existing statutory powers such as section 76 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 that allow the Home Secretary to strip leave in limited circumstances. Reform proposes to use transitional provisions “on a staggered and orderly basis” for implementation. It also states that biometric checks would be used to enforce character rules and that the Illegal Migration (Mass Deportation) Bill would be passed alongside repeal of the Human Rights Act and leaving the ECHR. The document does not set a legislative timetable, nor does it identify the accountable delivery bodies for creating training places tied to the Acute Skills Shortage Visa, for administering renewals of five‑year visas, or for processing reapplications from existing ILR holders; those operational responsibilities are implied to fall to the Home Office but are not specified in detail.

What isn't specified

The document does not cost the proposed reforms themselves: there are no estimates for the administrative cost of rescinding existing ILR, running a five‑year renewable visa system, processing reapplications, or managing the expected legal challenges and appeals. It does not provide a timetable for primary legislation, nor does it quantify how many current ILR holders would be affected. The mechanism for rescinding ILR in cases where removal is not procedurally available is not specified beyond a general statement about primary legislation. The proposal to require a training place for each Acute Skills Shortage Visa lacks detail on which bodies will create and fund those places, and how they will be matched to employers. The document also omits assessment of transitional impacts on employers, public services, and migrants’ wages, and gives no estimate of the fiscal consequences of repealing or replacing international and human‑rights obligations until such steps are taken.

Language and firmness

The policy section uses decisive language, frequently employing “will” for commitments: for example “Reform will abolish ILR” and “Reform will replace ILR”. It also contains firm legislative claims such as “Reform is already committed to leaving the ECHR… repealing the Human Rights Act and passing the Illegal Migration (Mass Deportation) Bill.” Some passages introduce conditional or procedural qualifiers, for example “Anyone currently with ILR will need to reapply for visas that do not offer recourse to welfare,” and “Using transitional provision, this will be done on a staggered and orderly basis,” which signal intended sequencing rather than detailed deadlines or mechanisms.