Wages are stagnating and young people are struggling to find that essential first work experience because the British economy is addicted to illegal migrant labour, says Reform UK as it promises a major change that would see illegal-employing executives jailed and the public rewarded for reporting “dodgy” businesses to the immigration authorities.
A future Reform government led by Nigel Farage would institute a ‘Deliveroo law’, going after big-money businesses including doordash-type which take advantage of what has so far been decades of extreme permissiveness by the British state towards the black market of migrant labour. Modelled on tax fraud rules, where the executives of businesses responsible for systemic lawbreaking can be held personally liable even if they attempt to argue they didn’t know what was going on beneath them, Reform spokesman Zia Yusuf said new rules would levy huge fines and send perpetrators to jail.
Speaking in central London on Thursday morning, Yusuf said “for decades the political establishment in Westminster has betrayed British workers. British people have barely seen any real wage growth… they created an ecosystem in which illegal migrants are funnelled directly into our national economy, driving down wages and funding the despicable people smuggle gangs operating across the channel. They effectively decriminalised illegal working in the United Kingdom. This is a key reason why British people have hardly seen any wage growth, it is a key reason why over a million young Brits are now out of work and education”.
The new system would see Britain bring in “the toughest penalties in the world” for companies employing illegal migrants, he said, noting how taxpayers massively subsidise cut-rate labour for multinationals by providing housing and meals to illegal migrants and refugees, who then go and work in the ‘gig’ economy illegally for pay well below what any real worker could afford to accept.
As well as fines of 10-per-cent of global turnover for companies found guilty of systemic illegal migrant labour use and jail sentences for up to five years for senior executives, the Reform policy would also go after the smaller enablers of the black market, too. Because many illegal migrant food delivery drivers already sidestep proof of right to work checks by renting an identity from other people, Yusuf said those letting out their identity cards to riders would be stripped of their visas if foreign nationals and deported, handed fines backed by asset seizures, and given jail sentences.
Enforcing basic standards on the road would also push the ball back to the court of British teens looking for a job, Yusuf said, with a new minimum of delivery drivers needing a British driving licence to be applied.
Yusuf said:
… illegal working is embedded in the business models of multi-billion-pound, multi-national corporations operating in Britain. In our major cities it is common knowledge that illegal migrants housed and fed in migrant hotels and HMOs at immense expense to the British taxpayer are moonlighting for gig economy platforms… recent enforcement operations revealed a staggering 40% of gig economy riders checked in targeted sweeps were working illegally. Local police officers have privately reported enforcement operations yielding a 100% hit rate.
Setting the tone for resistance to the proposed policy, the Guardian newspaper, the journal of the British left, decried the ideas as a “controversial plan”.
Also in Reform’s sights is the proliferation of fake businesses colonising the high streets for the purpose of money laundering. Best known for the sudden surge in ‘vape’ shops and ‘Turkish Barbers’, Yusuf reflected “nobody genuinely believe these operations survive on legitimate commercial demand”.
From now on, given the prevalence of money laundering, vape shops would have to be licensed premises, with a maximum of 1,000 locations nationwide. Enforcement of these rules would mean the establishment of special teams of police, trading standards, and immigration enforcement working together with the powers of entry and arrest, and even the ability to hand out immediate deportation orders.
Because prosecutions against the tide of fake businesses has already struggled because local authorities don’t have the resources to pursue complex fraud cases, Yusuf said a Reform government would create a “central prosecution fund” to prosecute “dodgy high street operators” without bankrupting themselves. The public would also be incentivised to get involved, with the proceeds from seized assets from criminal investigations to be used to pay cash rewards to people who tipped off authorities to fake companies.
Yusuf said the anticipated returns to the government from cracking down on these practices could be so great, the cost of extra enforcement could be cost-neutral.
The issues Yusuf identified as he launched the proposed Reform UK government crackdown, should it win the next election, would tackle the well understood but largely ignored — in Westminster, anyway — UK black market for labour problem. As reported in Jun 2025, illegal immigration is fuelling ballooning black market economy, the National Centre for Social Research found in their research which stated the number of people in that black market economy had increased a staggering 80 per cent since 2016.
Businesses were avoiding billions in tax every year by employing illegals, it was said, with industries identified also including cannabis farms, laundrettes, restaurants, and fast fashion sweatshops.
Nigel Farage said last year time:
…we pay for their accommodation. Nearly 40,000 boat migrants have arrived since Labour came to power — and numbers are up 40 per cent on this time last year. How many of these already work on the black market without paying tax? Labour has long championed the mantra of British jobs for British workers. But brickies and builders are being undercut by illegal labour.
Britain is in social and economic decline. The social contract is stretched to its limits. People that pay their taxes and play by the rules increasingly feel shafted.Yes, these migrants may be victims of exploitation — but they are also part of the criminal economy. Unscrupulous bosses are laughing all the way to the bank while British workers get priced out again.
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