The 92-year-old Tory grandee’s comparison of Reform UK to 1930s fascists isn’t hyperbole – it’s a warning from someone who knows what happens when democracies ignore the danger until it’s too late.
There are few figures more influential in the modern Conservative Party than Lord Michael Heseltine. Serving in governments under three Prime Ministers, Heseltine was both revered and feared by his Tory colleagues – an integral part of a Thatcherite government, equally instrumental in her eventual downfall. But whatever your political colours, no one can doubt Lord Heseltine as a public servant in every sense of the word, who cares deeply for Britain and its people. Throughout his 60 years in frontline politics, he has represented a calibre of politician that few are willing or able to replicate.
When Heseltine speaks, the Conservative Party listens. Last week, at their party conference in Manchester, he weighed in on the state of British democracy, at a fringe event which drew a crowd the current Shadow Cabinet could only dream of. He shared some criticisms of the Labour government, but even sharper feedback for his own party. But it was his characterisation of Nigel Farage and Reform UK as the modern equivalent of 1930s fascists that made the headlines, as he remarked on Reform’s disregard for democratic institutions and destructive rhetoric, and the threat this posed to our civilised society. With his comments, Heseltine wasn’t indulging in partisan rhetoric, nor a desire to prevent his party splintering to the right. He was issuing a warning rooted in institutional memory that Britain’s political establishment desperately needs to hear.
A warning forged from history
At 92, Lord Heseltine has lived through the consequences of appeasing far-right rhetoric and policies. He remembers when members of his own party sought appeasement of Hitler. He witnessed the social damage wrought by Enoch Powell’s infamous 1968 ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech. And now, watching Reform gain ground, whilst Tories desperately mimic their rhetoric, Heseltine recognises the pattern repeating itself. His diagnosis was stark and deliberately uncomfortable – but it was one he was glad to defend. In a BBC Newsnight interview after his initial comments, Heseltine elaborated: “the fascists were anti-Jews, and the protest today is anti-immigrant – but the same arguments, the same sort of human nature is being stirred up.”
This wasn’t careless language. It was a precise historical parallel drawn by someone who understands that fascism doesn’t announce itself with jackboots and torchlight parades. It needn’t resemble Nuremberg, or even Oswald Mosley and his Blackshirts on Cable Street. It arrives through the normalisation of scapegoating, the dehumanisation of minorities, and the erosion of democratic guardrails. Reform’s rhetoric follows this playbook with disturbing fidelity. They characterise immigrants as “rapists, robbers, and criminals”, as Heseltine puts it, whilst stoking fears about cultural replacement and positioning themselves as the only voice willing to speak ‘uncomfortable truths’. As Heseltine outlined, these are not legitimate policy positions, but tactics designed to mobilise rage against the vulnerable in society – precisely as fascist movements have done throughout history.
The Conservatives’ moral surrender
What makes Heseltine’s intervention particularly significant is not simply his repudiation of Reform, but his exposure of the moral bankruptcy of his own party’s response to the far-right. Rather than denouncing Farage’s extreme politics, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch borrows from it. Her pledges to withdraw Britain from the European Convention on Human Rights, deport 150,000 migrants annually, and branding of asylum seekers as ‘illegals’ represent capitulation to the very forces Heseltine warns against. His concerns for his party resemble those of Neil Kinnock for Labour, who, in July, asserted Reform are borrowing from “a similar playbook” to 1930s fascists, pleading for his party to oppose Farage more strongly. This is a message brought into sharper focus three months later, as Labour cower to Reform in seeking to tighten rules around indefinite leave to remain, and immigration more widely.
Heseltine and Kinnock are right to demand better of their parties, in the pursuit of a better politics. They know the strategy of dancing to the tune of the far-right isn’t just morally compromised – it’s historically illiterate. Mainstream parties that adopt such extreme language to chase votes don’t neutralise the threat – they legitimise it. They signal that the previously unacceptable is now within the bounds of respectable debate. And crucially, they never out-compete the far-right, who will always be willing to go further. In declaring that Conservatives must “never, never, have any part in the populist extremism of Nigel Farage”, Heseltine was drawing a line his party’s current leadership refuses to. At Labour Party Conference, the Prime Minister spoke more directly about the threat posed by Farage than ever before. But addressing the Tories in Manchester, Kemi Badenoch was desperate to avoid discussing Reform, and the increasing number of defections to the insurgent party. With the prospect of Robert Jenrick launching a leadership challenge in the coming months, all the while cosying up to Reform, it’s little wonder Badenoch is so unnerved.
Resist before it’s too late
But this is precisely why Lord Heseltine’s comments are so valuable. As possibly the most respected living party grandee, he has outlined a blueprint that any sensible Tory should follow to the letter. Heseltine’s comments are rooted not in nostalgia, but in recognition of Britain’s democratic backsliding. He knows that extremist movements don’t moderate when engaged, but instead advance. The time to resist authoritarianism is before it gains institutional power, not after. His reference to Churchill’s “iron determination” to stop Conservative colleagues seeking peace with Hitler wasn’t coincidental. It was a reminder that resisting extremism within your own political tradition requires courage, and a recognition that some threats cannot be accommodated. As Tory MPs stutter over where and when exactly they should push back against Farage, Lord Heseltine acknowledges the simple truth: the Conservatives must unite now against a fascist threat.
We should listen to Heseltine not because of his unrivalled political experience or his grand age, but because of what this represents: lived experience of what happens when democracies ignore warnings until it’s too late. By the time the true nature of fascist movements becomes undeniable, they have typically already captured enough institutional power to resist removal. Reform UK represents a clear and present danger to democratic norms, civil society, and vulnerable communities. That danger doesn’t diminish because Farage wears a suit rather than a uniform, or because Reform fields candidates in elections rather than marching through streets. The moment for resistance is now, whilst it can still be peaceful, electoral, and democratic.
The question facing the Conservatives, and indeed Labour, is whether they possess sufficient moral clarity to heed this warning, or whether they will discover their mistake only after the damage becomes irreversible. I, for one, will be listening to Lord Heseltine – let’s hope those in power do the same.
This article was first published on the Ugly Politix Substack and is reproduced here by kind permission.
