William Hague has warned that Britain under a second term Labour administration would become a "foreign land" but promised a future Tory government would give the people their "country back".

Speaking to the Tory rank-and-file at his party's spring conference in Harrogate on Sunday, Hague said Britain would be irreversibly changed should Tony Blair win a second general election.

Said Hague: "Let me take you on a journey to a foreign land - to Britain after a second term of Tony Blair. The Royal Mint melting down pound coins as the euro notes start to circulate. Our currency, and our ability to set our own interest rates, gone forever."

He said Britain was already showing signs of losing its nationhood - and stressed the process would be accelerated if Blair won a second term. Hague told the faithful: "The chancellor returning from Brussels carrying instructions to raise taxes still further. Control of our own taxes given away. Britain's forces have been committed to operations as part of the new European Army outside Nato, to the dismay of the United States. The Atlantic alliance in crisis."

Crime would soar and the NHS would be plunged further into crisis, Hague claimed.

"Letters arrive on doorsteps cancelling yet another round of hospital operations in the health service under a government that never delivers. The jail doors opening as thousands more serious criminals walk out early to offend again. Police morale at a new low, said Hague. "That's Labour's Britain four years from now."

Setting out his "mission" for a future Tory government he said he would build a "responsible society". This would focus on promoting thrift, marriage and the family - measures which Hague believes are seen as"commonsense" by the British people.

He also set out Tory fears on immigration and the long-term consequences of devolution on the UK.

Labour has dismissed Hague's speech as a sign of his increasing desperation about the coming general election.

Speaking to the BBC, Margaret Beckett led the attack. Hague, she said, was "a desperate man with nothing to say about the big issues".

Beckett also claimed that the Tories were secretly planning to come out of the European Union. "It is now clearer than ever that the Tories' real agenda is withdrawal from the European Union, at the cost of three million British jobs," said Beckett.

Hague was also dealt a political blow on Sunday when Michael Heseltine, the former Conservative deputy prime minister, said he had faced a "dilemma" about whether to vote Tory under the current leadership.

Heseltine told the Independent on Sunday: "Yes I have been in a dilemma but I have resolved it in my own mind. I am going to vote Conservative. I have been a Conservative too long to do anything else."

He also claimed that the Tories could recover their position in the polls by securing a return of Ken Clarke to the frontbench.