,.

His comment was in reference to dire polling which was recently being circulated in CCHQ.

Reform UK urged Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch to “condemn her chairman”.

He said: “This will be on leaflets and ad vans to the point of saturation, so every single one of their constituents knows: the Tories think that if you support Reform, you’re a Nazi.”

“Making a comparison between Reform and Nigel Farage to the Nazis is not only a disgraceful slur but also lazy and weak.”

The row comes as Reform is consistently leading national opinion polls, with the Tories at risk of being largely wiped out at the next election.

There have been calls from some on the Right, including Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, for the two parties to work together, but this has been ruled out by Mr Farage and Ms Badenoch.

Nigel Farage Erupts With Savage Response After Tory Nazi Jibe

A fierce political row erupted between Nigel Farage and the Conservative Party in November 2025 after Tory chairman Kevin Hollinrake appeared to compare a new Reform UK badge with an emblem associated with Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party.

The intervention immediately provoked an angry response from Farage and senior Reform figures, while Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch defended Hollinrake by describing his intervention as a joke.

The episode quickly developed into a wider dispute about political language, the growing competition between Reform UK and the Conservatives, and how far politicians should go when attacking their opponents.

At the centre of the controversy was a black-and-gold Reform emblem unveiled by Farage on social media.

Farage posted an image of the badge with the caption “coming soon”, apparently promoting a new Reform-related product. Hollinrake responded by posting an image of the Nazi Party’s “Golden Party Badge”, an award created in 1933 for early members of Hitler’s party.

Hollinrake subsequently deleted the original post and replaced it with a link to the relevant Wikipedia entry.

For Reform, the implication was unmistakable.

For the Conservatives, however, Badenoch argued that the post should be understood as humour rather than as a literal allegation that Reform supporters were Nazis.

The disagreement over that interpretation became the heart of the political row.

Farage’s immediate response

Farage reacted by turning the controversy into an attack on the Conservative Party itself.

Rather than simply demanding an apology, he used the incident to argue that the Conservatives were increasingly disconnected from the political competition developing between the two parties.

In his response, Farage pointed to the Conservatives’ electoral difficulties and argued that the episode demonstrated why the party was struggling to compete with Reform.

He wrote that the controversy was “why” the Conservatives were on course for only 14 seats at the next election, referring to polling-based projections circulating at the time. That figure was a projection rather than an established election result and should not be treated as a prediction of what ultimately happened.

Farage’s strategy was therefore clear.

He attempted to transform a personal attack into a broader argument about the decline of the Conservative Party.

Rather than allowing the discussion to remain about a badge, he presented Hollinrake’s intervention as evidence of a much deeper political problem.

What did Hollinrake actually post?

The controversy began on 23 November 2025.

Farage had shared the new Reform design, which featured a circular black-and-gold badge carrying the party’s emblem.

Hollinrake replied by posting an image associated with the Nazi Party’s Golden Party Badge.

The historical badge was awarded to early members of the Nazi Party and was introduced in 1933. The design featured a golden swastika.

After deleting the initial image, Hollinrake posted a link to a Wikipedia page about the badge.

The Independent reported that the intervention was widely interpreted as a comparison between Reform’s new emblem and the Nazi badge.

Hollinrake did not explicitly write that Reform supporters were Nazis in the post.

That distinction is relevant.

However, placing the Nazi badge directly in response to Farage’s Reform emblem created an obvious association, and Reform politicians interpreted it as an attack on the party and its supporters.

Zia Yusuf launches his own attack

Reform policy chief Zia Yusuf was among the most vocal critics.

He argued that the Conservatives had handed Reform a powerful political message that could be used repeatedly against Tory candidates.

Yusuf said the incident would appear on Reform leaflets and campaign vehicles, arguing that voters would be told that the Conservatives believed Reform supporters were Nazis.

That statement illustrates why the controversy became politically useful to Reform.

The party could present itself as the victim of an attack from an established political organisation.

For a movement that frequently argues that traditional political parties are hostile to its supporters, the incident fitted naturally into an existing political narrative.

But whether every Conservative voter shared Hollinrake’s interpretation was a separate question.

The controversy concerned the actions of one senior Conservative figure, not an independently established view held by every member of the party.

Suella Braverman breaks ranks

Perhaps the most significant complication for the Conservatives came from within their own party.

Former Conservative Home Secretary Suella Braverman publicly criticised Hollinrake’s intervention.

She said that comparing Reform and its supporters to Nazis was “wrong, irresponsible and highly counter-productive”.

Braverman also said she expected such behaviour from Labour rather than the Conservatives and argued that political parties should concentrate on challenging policies and actions rather than making comparisons with Nazism.

Her intervention was important because it demonstrated that the controversy was not simply Reform versus the Conservatives.

There was disagreement within Conservative circles about how the party should respond to Farage.

Some Conservatives regarded Reform as a major political threat.

Others appeared concerned that excessively personal attacks could strengthen Farage’s position by allowing him to portray himself as an outsider being attacked by the political establishment.

Braverman’s intervention reflected the latter concern.

Badenoch defends her chairman

Kemi Badenoch took a different approach.

Rather than rebuking Hollinrake, she defended him and said the post was intended as a joke.

She also pointed to the sentencing of Nathan Gill, Reform’s former leader in Wales, who had been jailed for 10 and a half years after admitting bribery offences involving pro-Russian statements.

Badenoch argued that Reform had more serious matters to deal with than the dispute over the badge.

That response shifted the controversy onto another politically sensitive issue.

The Conservatives could argue that Reform had itself been dealing with serious controversies involving individual members.

Reform, meanwhile, could argue that the criminal conduct of a former party figure should not be used to justify comparing the wider movement with Nazism.

Those are fundamentally different arguments.

The Nathan Gill distinction

Nathan Gill’s case is particularly important because it appeared during the same political period.

Gill had previously served as leader of Reform UK in Wales.

He was sentenced to 10 years and six months after pleading guilty to bribery offences involving payments for political statements favourable to Russian interests.

His criminal conduct occurred in 2018 and 2019, before Reform UK existed in its present organisational form.

The case was nevertheless politically significant because Gill later became associated with Reform and led the party in Wales.

The Conservatives used the conviction as evidence that Reform had serious internal problems.

Reform condemned Gill’s actions and stressed that his criminal conduct was his own.

The Nazi comparison therefore created a collision between two separate political controversies.

The Conservatives could point to Gill’s conviction.

Reform could point to Hollinrake’s Nazi comparison.

Neither controversy automatically established the broader claim being made about the opposing party.

Farage turns the row into a political argument

Farage has considerable experience in converting criticism into a political message.

Throughout his career, he has argued that established political parties and institutions underestimate the support for movements challenging the political consensus.

The Hollinrake controversy gave him another opportunity to make that argument.

His response focused heavily on the Conservatives’ political position.

The implication was that the party was spending too much energy attacking Reform and not enough addressing the reasons voters were considering alternatives.

This was not simply an argument about political etiquette.

It was an argument about the changing structure of British politics.

The Conservatives had traditionally been one of Britain’s two dominant parties.

By 2025, however, Reform was competing directly with them for voters on issues including immigration, taxation, national identity and the size of the state.

That competition created an unusually hostile relationship between the two parties.

Why the badge became symbolic

The badge itself was relatively insignificant compared with the political argument surrounding it.

Political symbols can become powerful because they allow parties to communicate complex messages instantly.

For Reform, the black-and-gold emblem was associated with the party’s identity and branding.

For Hollinrake, the visual similarity provided an opportunity for a joke or political attack.

But because the historical reference was to the Nazi Party, the intervention carried an obvious sensitivity.

Nazism is not simply another political ideology in Britain’s history.

It is associated with dictatorship, racial persecution, the Holocaust and the Second World War.

That is why comparisons with Nazism are generally much more serious than ordinary political insults.

Braverman’s criticism reflected precisely this concern when she argued that such comparisons lowered the level of political debate.

Reform’s growing challenge to the Conservatives

The controversy also revealed the increasingly difficult strategic position facing the Conservative Party.

Reform had been competing for many of the same voters who had previously supported the Conservatives.

Immigration was one of the clearest areas of overlap.

Both parties supported stricter immigration controls, although their proposed policies differed significantly.

Reform also positioned itself as a party willing to challenge established political institutions and what it described as excessive regulation and taxation.

That created a direct electoral challenge to the Conservatives.

The Conservatives therefore faced a dilemma.

Attacking Reform could demonstrate that the party regarded it as a serious competitor.

But excessive attacks could also give Farage more opportunities to portray himself as the victim of the political establishment.

The Hollinrake controversy illustrated that dilemma perfectly.

The danger of political escalation

There was another important consequence.

The argument demonstrated how quickly political debate can escalate once historical analogies involving Nazism enter the conversation.

Once such a comparison is made, the original policy disagreement can disappear.

Instead of discussing taxation, immigration, government spending or foreign policy, politicians and journalists begin debating whether one side has crossed an acceptable line.

That can benefit politicians who are particularly skilled at political confrontation.

Farage has repeatedly demonstrated an ability to turn controversial moments into broader arguments about his opponents.

The badge dispute was another example.

A row larger than the original post

By the end of the controversy, the original social-media exchange had become a dispute involving Farage, Hollinrake, Badenoch, Braverman and senior Reform figures.

The Conservatives were divided over the tone of the response.

Reform was united in condemning the comparison.

And the wider political debate returned to the question of how the Conservative Party should compete with Reform.

For Farage, the episode provided an opportunity to argue that the Conservatives were failing to understand the political challenge posed by his party.

For Badenoch, defending her chairman was a way of preventing a social-media dispute from becoming an admission that the Conservatives had made a serious political error.

For Braverman, the controversy represented an opportunity to call for a different style of Conservative opposition.

What the episode reveals

The “Nazi jibe” controversy ultimately says more about the rivalry between Reform and the Conservatives than about a badge.

Reform was increasingly challenging the Conservatives for political attention and support.

The Conservatives were trying to distinguish themselves from Farage while competing with him over some of the same issues.

That competition inevitably produced sharper rhetoric.

But the episode also demonstrates why political comparisons involving Nazism are particularly contentious.

Hollinrake’s post was described by Reform as an attack on its supporters. Badenoch said it was intended as a joke. Braverman criticised it as irresponsible.

Those are different interpretations of the same incident.

What is clear is that Farage did not allow the controversy to remain a minor social-media dispute.

He used it to attack the Conservative Party’s political strategy and to reinforce Reform’s argument that established parties were struggling to respond to its rise.

The dispute therefore became another chapter in the increasingly intense competition between Reform and the Conservatives — a competition in which political messaging, personal attacks and social-media confrontations can sometimes become almost as important as the policies being debated.

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