Reform UK has said it would put company bosses in prison and fine their firms 10 per cent of their global income if they employ illegal migrants. The party said these would be the toughest penalties for illegal working anywhere in the world.

The plans were set out by Reform UK's home affairs spokesperson, Zia Yusuf, on 5 August 2026. He said that if the party won the next general election, it would pass laws making the bosses of large companies personally responsible when their firms profit from illegal workers, even if the bosses did not know about it. The party compared this to rules already used in the financial sector, where senior managers can be held personally responsible for wrongdoing on their watch.

Yusuf said the measures were aimed at delivery and gig economy companies, such as food delivery or courier firms, that profit from illegal workers without facing consequences. He argued that young British people are being shut out of entry-level jobs and that the wider economy suffers as a result. "We will introduce the toughest penalties anywhere in the world for illegal working," he said. The proposals also include a public phone line for reporting suspected illegal working or organised crime, with police and authorities such as trading standards teams required to follow up reports. People whose tip-offs lead to successful prosecutions would get a share of the resulting fines. Separately, Reform UK's published policy platform commits the party to setting up a UK Deportation Command to identify and deport illegal migrants, though no timeline has been given for its creation.

The Home Office responded quickly and dismissively. A spokesperson said the government is already closing loopholes that allow illegal migrants to work in the UK by extending right-to-work checks to the gig economy and delivery sector. Employers who break the law, the spokesperson said, already face fines of up to £60,000 per illegal worker, business closures, loss of licences and prison sentences of up to five years. A Home Office source described parts of Reform UK's announcement as "empty posturing". The source said: "The Government is already doing much of this. The rest is just empty posturing."

The Home Office also pointed to enforcement figures since Labour took office. Immigration enforcement action has risen to the highest level in British history, the spokesperson said, with illegal working arrests up 83 per cent and raids up 77 per cent. One UK council was fined £45,000 for employing a single illegal worker in June, showing the existing penalty system in action.

The broader context here is a party trying to show it is tougher than the government on immigration, at a time when the government can already point to rising enforcement numbers. Reform UK's proposals go further than current law in two ways: bosses would be held responsible even if they had no idea illegal workers were being hired, and fines would be based on a company's total global income rather than a set amount per worker.

Whether holding bosses personally responsible in this way would actually work in practice is likely to be a central question if the proposals develop further. The financial sector's rules apply within a tightly regulated industry; applying the same idea to any large company whose contractors or supply chains might include illegal workers raises questions about how far the responsibility should reach, and the party has not yet addressed these. The Home Office's rebuttal, by contrast, relies on pointing to existing powers that already include prison sentences and escalating fines.

What separates the two sides is less about whether penalties exist and more about how big they are and how they work. The government fines employers per illegal worker; Reform UK wants to tie fines to a company's global income, which could produce much larger penalties for big firms. The reward for tip-offs, meanwhile, would let members of the public help enforce immigration law in a way that has no direct parallel in current legislation.