The Making of Eurosceptic Britain by Gifford Chris;

Author:Gifford, Chris;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Routledge

The End of Thatcher

With the resignation of Lawson and the demotion of Howe, Thatcher's position had been severely weakened. Moreover, she was beginning to be viewed as an electoral liability and the cause of the government's unpopularity. The possibility seemed to emerge of a revisionist Thatcherism centred on a renewed coalition of committed and pragmatic Europeans within the governing elite. The alliance of Douglas Hurd, as Foreign Secretary, and John Major, as Chancellor, forced the Prime Minister to accept British ERM membership in 1990. Hurd was a classic Tory European; he was, as Young says, 'a Foreign Office man to his roots, trained there as an embryonic mandarin, embraced there as Heath's private secretary when the 1971 negotiation took place' (1998, 362). Major was to all appearances a Thatcherite, but his views on Europe took shape while he was Foreign Secretary and Chancellor (p. 363). While at the Foreign Office he became more positive about the EC and began to develop good relationships with his European counterparts (Seldon, 1998, p. 95). In a speech to the Conservative party conference in October 1989 he restated Britain's commitment to membership of the Community, and in private he expressed reservations about Thatcher's oppositional line. As Chancellor, he was committed to membership of the ERM as the only way of countering inflation (Major, 1999, p. 138).

When, in the summer of 1990, Thatcher lost Nicholas Ridley from the Cabinet because of his anti-German comments in The Spectator, she lost what she referred to as 'almost my only ally in the Cabinet' (Thatcher, 1993, p. 722). With John Major replacing Lawson as Chancellor her position was so weakened that she was unable to hold out any longer against membership and Britain eventually joined on 5 October 1990. As she recalled, 'although the terms that I had laid down had not been met, I had too few allies to continue to resist and win the day' (Thatcher, 1993, p. 722). Nevertheless, her Euroscepticism had not abated and was on display at the Rome summit in the same month. She attacked the plans for EMU as 'cloud-cuckoo land' and promised to block anything thatwas not inBritain's interest (Young, 1998, p. 367). On her statement to the Commons she rounded on Delors and the Commission referring to it as trying to 'extinguish democracy' and create a federal Europe: "'no ... no ... no", she bawled, her eye seemingly directed to the fields and seas, the hills and the landing grounds, where the island people would never surrender' (p. 368). It was at this point that Geoffrey Howe made his decision to resign and his resignation speech tiiat followed secured Thatcher's downfall. This speech was a powerful defence of the Tory Europeanism of Macmillan and Heath. He referred to the necessity of facing the 'realities of power' as Macmillan had done and not to 'retreat into a ghetto of sentimentality about our past' (Hansard, Vol. 180, Col. 2, 13). It succinctly defended tiiis political project and portrayed Thatcher as its

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.