Nigel Farage blasts Boris Johnson over his Brexit failures (Image: AFP via Getty Images)
Reform UK Nigel Farage blasted Boris Johnson for “doing nothing” with Brexit and vowed he would make it a success.
In an interview with the Daily Expresso, our new weekday show, Mr Farage said the former prime minister “rode” to power on the back of the vote to leave the EU.
Asked if Brexit would finally play out how it was supposed to if he wins, he replied: “Yes. I think it’s very disappointing. Boris rode off the back of Brexit. He got into Number 10 with a big majority at that election and did nothing with it.
“Now they blamed covid but I’m not sure. I think the establishment governing Tory party, they never believed in it.
“For most of them a damage limitation exercise rather than opportunity. I think the betrayal of people like our fishing communities, to allow the foreign boats access within our six and 12 mile area for another 11 years, it’s just one example of how we could have done so much better with it. And now Starmer is doing everything he can to incrementally reverse Brexit bit by bit.”
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Mr Farage said his party conference in Birmingham on Friday will be a “consolidation” of the promises he made at last year’s event.
Hinting at the possibility of big name defections at the gathering, he said there will be “one or two people who join us”.
The conference will be about “learning the lessons” of May 1 when Reform made major gains in English county elections to apply them for polls in Scotland, Wales and London next year.
Nigel Farage blasts Boris Johnson for ‘doing nothing’ with Brexit
Nigel Farage has renewed his criticism of Boris Johnson, arguing that the former prime minister failed to use the opportunities created by Brexit and accusing successive Conservative governments of falling short of what Leave voters were promised.
The intervention reflects a long-running disagreement between Farage and Johnson over what Brexit was supposed to deliver. While Johnson became the Conservative politician most closely associated with completing the UK’s formal departure from the European Union, Farage has repeatedly argued that leaving the EU was only the beginning of the process.
In his view, the governments that followed the 2016 referendum failed to make sufficient use of the freedoms created by Brexit.
Farage has described the Conservative handling of Brexit as a major disappointment, particularly in relation to immigration, regulation and Britain’s economic relationship with Europe. In a 2026 interview marking the tenth anniversary of the referendum, he argued that governments had chosen not to use some of the policy freedoms available outside the EU.
The criticism is significant because Johnson remains one of the most recognisable figures associated with the Brexit campaign and the 2019 Conservative election victory.
Johnson and the promise to “get Brexit done”
Boris Johnson’s political career was closely linked to Brexit.
After becoming Conservative leader and prime minister in 2019, Johnson campaigned on the slogan “Get Brexit Done”. His government subsequently secured parliamentary approval for the Withdrawal Agreement, and the United Kingdom formally left the European Union on 31 January 2020.
The transition period ended at the close of 2020, after which the UK began operating under the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement.
For Johnson and his supporters, this represented the fulfilment of a central promise made during the 2019 general election.
Farage, however, has long argued that formal departure was not the same as achieving the broader political objectives associated with Brexit.
In 2019, when he was leader of the Brexit Party, Farage criticised Johnson’s proposed agreement with Brussels and argued that it would leave Britain too closely tied to European rules. He called for a “Leave alliance” and said that a different approach was needed to deliver what he described as a genuine Brexit.
That disagreement helps explain why Farage continues to criticise Johnson years after the UK’s departure.
Immigration remains at the centre of the dispute
One of Farage’s strongest criticisms concerns immigration.
A major argument used by Leave campaigners before the 2016 referendum was that Brexit would allow Britain to regain greater control over immigration and its borders.
The end of free movement between the UK and EU represented a major change. However, overall migration did not simply fall after Brexit. Instead, the composition of migration changed significantly, with non-EU migration becoming much more prominent.
Farage has repeatedly argued that this represents a failure by Conservative governments to make the choices available to them after Brexit.
In a 2026 interview, he described what he called the “Boriswave” as a failure and argued that Conservative governments had not delivered the border control many Brexit supporters expected.
He has also used the issue to distinguish Reform UK’s political programme from the record of the Conservatives.
This has allowed Farage to present Reform not simply as a continuation of the Conservative Party, but as a political movement claiming to complete changes that he believes the Conservatives left unfinished.
The economic argument
Farage’s criticism is not limited to immigration.
He has also argued that Britain has not made sufficient use of regulatory freedoms outside the European Union.
The UK is no longer required to implement new EU legislation automatically in the same way it did as a member state. However, Britain’s close trading relationship with the European market means that businesses continue to operate in an environment heavily influenced by European standards.
Farage has argued that governments should have used Brexit to pursue a more distinctive regulatory and economic model.
In his 2026 interview, he complained that British governments had sometimes chosen to mirror European rules rather than exploit Britain’s ability to diverge. He also criticised what he described as burdens placed on small businesses.
That argument raises a broader question about the meaning of Brexit.
Leaving the EU created the legal ability to diverge from EU rules, but it did not require the government to diverge from every European standard.
There are economic and practical reasons why Britain might choose to remain aligned with some EU regulations, particularly where British businesses trade extensively with European countries.
Farage’s argument is that the government should have been more willing to accept divergence.
Critics of that approach point to the importance of frictionless trade and regulatory compatibility with Britain’s largest nearby trading market.
Farage’s attack on Johnson
Farage’s criticism of Johnson has become increasingly direct.
In 2024, he accused the former prime minister of betraying Brexit voters and allowing mass immigration to increase. Farage also argued that Johnson had failed to use the political opportunity created by the Conservatives’ large 2019 majority.
The argument is politically significant because Johnson won an 80-seat Conservative majority in the 2019 election, campaigning heavily on Brexit.
Farage’s interpretation is that this majority created the political space for a more radical restructuring of Britain’s relationship with Europe.
Johnson’s supporters would point to the fact that his government did formally complete Britain’s departure from the EU, something that had remained unresolved for several years following the referendum.
The disagreement therefore concerns not whether Brexit happened, but what Brexit was supposed to achieve after Britain left.
Why Farage continues to raise the issue
For Reform UK, the Brexit argument has an important political function.
Farage can use the issue to argue that Britain’s established political parties have repeatedly failed to deliver what voters were promised.
This is particularly relevant to his relationship with the Conservatives.
Many voters who supported Brexit also voted Conservative in 2019. By arguing that Johnson and subsequent Conservative governments failed to deliver the full potential of Brexit, Farage can appeal to people who remain dissatisfied with the Conservative record.
The strategy also allows Reform to present itself as separate from the political establishment.
Rather than defending the record of the governments that implemented Brexit, Farage argues that those governments failed to complete the job.
A more complicated picture
The reality is more complicated than either side’s political narrative.
Brexit delivered substantial constitutional and legal changes.
Britain left the EU’s political institutions, ended free movement and gained greater freedom to establish its own trade, immigration and regulatory policies.
At the same time, Brexit also introduced new barriers to trade with the EU and created significant adjustments for businesses, exporters, travellers and workers.
The economic consequences have been debated extensively.
Some Brexit supporters argue that greater regulatory independence and the ability to negotiate an independent trade policy will deliver benefits over the long term.
Critics point to increased trade friction and weaker economic performance relative to a counterfactual in which Britain remained within the EU.
These arguments cannot be resolved simply by looking at one political slogan.
The Johnson legacy
The debate also raises a question about Boris Johnson’s place in British political history.
Johnson played a central role in turning Brexit from an unresolved constitutional crisis into a completed legal process.
But the fact that Brexit was completed does not settle the argument over whether its potential was fully exploited.
Farage clearly believes it was not.
His criticism of Johnson is therefore not simply about the mechanics of leaving the EU. It is about what Britain did afterwards.
From Farage’s perspective, Brexit created choices that governments failed to use.
From a different perspective, governments made deliberate choices to balance Brexit freedoms against economic, diplomatic and regulatory considerations.
That difference is unlikely to disappear.
What comes next for the Brexit debate?
The Brexit debate has changed substantially since the 2016 referendum.
The immediate question of whether Britain should leave the EU has been settled.
The political argument is now increasingly about how Britain should use the independence created by leaving.
That includes questions about immigration, trade, regulation, agriculture, fishing, financial services, defence cooperation and Britain’s future relationship with European institutions.
Farage’s criticism of Johnson fits directly into this second phase of the debate.
His message is that Brexit should be treated as a beginning rather than an endpoint.
Johnson’s political legacy, meanwhile, remains closely tied to the phrase “Get Brexit Done”.
The disagreement between the two men ultimately reflects two different interpretations of that achievement.
For Johnson, leaving the European Union represented the fulfilment of a major democratic mandate.
For Farage, formal departure was only part of the promise.
As Reform continues to challenge the established parties, that distinction gives Farage a powerful political argument: that Britain may have left the EU, but successive governments did not necessarily use the freedom in the way Brexit supporters originally imagined.
Whether voters agree with that interpretation is a separate question.
What is clear is that, a decade after the referendum, Brexit remains a live political argument — not over whether Britain left, but over what Britain has done with the freedom that followed.