That strange sound coming from their primeval swamp is the noise of two Tory dinosaurs trumpeting their disdain and disapproval of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK. As if in coordinated stereo, former prime minister John Major, 82, and his erstwhile rival for the party leadership, Michael Heseltine, 92, have both sounded off with dire warnings to their old party against any idea forming a pact with Reform.
‘I want to expose Reform for what they are,’ Michael Heseltine said
Major, whose lacklustre premiership ended in 1997 with his landslide defeat by Tony Blair’s New Labour, said that a pact with the rising populist party which is leading both Labour and the Tories in the polls, would be ‘beyond stupid’ and forever destroy the Conservatives. Any Tories thinking of defecting to Reform should leave now, as the party would be better off without them, he suggested. ‘Frustration with democracy should not blind us to the toxic nature of nationalism, or any and every form of populist or authoritarian government,’ Major said at a Conservative party lunch meeting.
For his part, in an interview with the Times, Heseltine – the man who brought down Mrs Thatcher in 1990 – denounced Nigel Farage and said Reform is in some ways a ‘reincarnation of Oswald Mosley and his fascists in the Thirties’. ‘I want to expose Reform for what they are,’ he said.
‘Farage is the reincarnation of that human instinct to distrust something different from yourself,’ he said. ‘We have seen it all before throughout our history — the Wars of the Roses, Catholics v Protestants. We have been there before and I hate it. I wanted to tell the Conservative Party with all the experience I may have that they must never do a deal with Nigel Farage.’
Neither man has ever forgiven Farage for being the prime mover in freeing Britain from the clammy grip of their beloved EU. Their spiteful remarks about Reform appear to reflect their continuing impotent rage over Brexit. But the most remarkable thing about Major and Heseltine’s festering anger, is that neither of these elder statesmen have put a foot right since they succeeded Britain’s greatest postwar prime minister, with Major as PM and Heseltine as his deputy.
The slavish adoration of both men for the European project during their period in power led directly to ‘Black Wednesday’ in September 1992 when Britain was forced to withdraw from mirroring the European Exchange Rate mechanism. That debacle cost the Exchequer billions and destroyed the Tories’ reputation for financial competence.
Major and Heseltine epitomised the Tories’ disastrous slide to the Left in the post-Thatcher era, when they and their wet ilk became the ‘heirs to Blair’. Instead of emulating Thatcher, they simply aped the worst excesses of corporate government and ‘woke’ social attitudes. They both appear to be more interested in seeking the approval of Guardian-reading metropolitan types who would never dream of voting Conservative, than facing reality.
Seemingly oblivious of their own responsibility for the catastrophic decline of their party and the reasons for Reform’s rise, Major and Heseltine regularly pop up to condemn any attempt to return the Tories to real conservatism. Apparently unaware too of the harmful effects of mass migration, the major factor behind Reform’s rise, this elderly musty duo are as antiquated and out of touch as platform shoes and Afghan jackets.
If today’s Tories take their asinine advice, then they really are doomed. Heseltine and Major should reflect on their own chequered legacy – and pipe down.
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