Remainer civil servants are to blame for the “Boriswave” influx of migrants, Boris Johnson has claimed.
The former prime minister said those working in Whitehall had believed that Brexit would turn the UK into a “leper colony” and people would leave en masse.
Mr Johnson said civil servants had been keen for European migrants to come to Britain to work in the social care sector.
Speaking on Sky’s Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips, Mr Johnson said: “Nice, well-meaning, liberal people were saying Brexit is going to turn us into a leper colony and people are going to flee the UK.
“I actually think that sort of rhetoric was taken seriously by Whitehall. You have a lot of good, nice, Remain civil servants and I think that they thought that we did need to get people in to do social care and to do things like that.”
Boriswave was not stopped ‘fast enough’
Between 2021 and 2024, annual net immigration averaged more than double the previous decade, and hit a record high of 944,000 in the year ending March 2023.
Mr Johnson and his Tory successors issued 3.8 million long-term visas, resulting in a net migration influx of 2.6 million people.
The former prime minister said that as soon as he had “realised the numbers”, his administration used “our legal powers to turn it off”.
He added: “If I had a complaint, it was after I’d left office that wasn’t done fast enough.”