Raise legitimate concerns about mass immigration and you’re racist. This has been the mantra of the p0litical establishment in this country for decades.

In election after election, Britons voted for less immigration, be it through Brexit or through four consecutive Tory manifestos.

Each and every time, they were betrayed by governments who allowed untrammelled mass immigration, both legal and illegal, to continue. Upset about this? Racist. Concerned about grooming gangs? Racist. Want to raise the Union flag? Racist.

Well, the British people have had enough of it, and these smears no longer work.

The Prime Minister prefaced his annual conference by labelling the third of people in this country who say they’d vote for Reform as racist, in no small part because he is circling the drain. His collapse in popularity since winning the general election last year has been biblical.

He is now the most unpopular PM on record and is lashing out because a Survation poll this week showed the majority of Labour members want him replaced. So does the rest of the country.

Britain has become a food bank for the world. Foreign nationals already claim £9billion in Universal Credit payments alone. That’s about to balloon. Last week, Nigel Farage and I laid out our plans to avert the ‘Boriswave’ – which left unchecked would be one of the greatest fiscal catastrophes of our lifetimes. Half of those 3.8million legal migrants who were shipped in, against the wishes of the British people, will shortly be eligible for Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR).

The vast majority are from poor, non-EU countries, and did not come on work visas. Half do not work, and never will. Upon being granted ILR they gain lifetime access to our welfare state for themselves and all their dependants. The cost of this to the long-suffering British taxpayer will be north of £234billion.

Reform’s solution is simple: abolish ILR, replace it with a five-year renewable work visa which ensures migrants pay their way (by raising the qualifying salary level), speak English, and don’t commit crime. We would also legislate to ensure foreign nationals cannot claim welfare. This is the least the British people deserve.

The fact this has caused such a hysterical meltdown from the p0litical establishment shows how worried they are that the open border experiment they have overseen is about to end.

This weekend, a ‘dinghy’ arrived with a staggering 125 illegal migrants on board – a record for a single boat. Labour appears to be driving some kind of new industrial revolution in the Channel, where the small-boats crisis has become the big-boats crisis. So much for smashing the gangs.

As prime minister, Nigel Farage will offer British people a new deal: one in which Britain is proud, prosperous and powerful again. The foundation of this is a secure border and enforcement of immigration law. That day cannot come soon enough.