At a press conference in September, Reform UK announced a seismic policy proposal – the end of indefinite leave to remain for immigrants. This change, which would drastically transform the UK immigration system, was justified by a supposed need to tackle the “Boriswave”.
At first glance, the Boriswave portmanteau might be understood as merely a description of the post-Brexit pattern of heightened migration but, as the reactionary digital politics expert Dr Robert Topinka explains to Helen Pidd, the term was generated by the “extremely online far right” and originally used as a racial epithet. Topinka describes how it carries a right-leaning framing, whether its users are aware of it or not.
The pair discuss how far-right terms enter mainstream political conversations, the idea of politics being “downstream of culture”, why the right has recently been more successful in shaping our political language and how, as individuals, we should approach such terms.
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