Thatcher and Europe

         As a prime minister of eleven years, Margaret Thatcher held steadfast to many credos, amongst which lay the responsibility to maintain the sovereignty of Great Britain. While members of the Conservative party and the higher-ups of her own cabinet may have pushed Thatcher to make differing decisions, her attitude never faltered. True enough, Thatcher herself was not the type of prime minister to alter direction, nor change broad opinion.

         After her successful election in 1979, one of Thatcher's first and foremost objectives was to see a broad free market, with little to no government interaction in public entrepreneurialism. While bushwhacking trade unions down to minuscule power was within the Iron Lady's powers, the entirety of Europe proved to require a tad more effort. When first meeting French president Valery Giscard d'Estain, Thatcher made it clear that Britain expected it's outrageous £1 billion funding toward to the European budget to be paid back with interest. Initial reaction was miffed with disbelief, but the lady had made herself clear. It took five years for the European Economic Community to solidify a deal to gradually pay Britain billions of pounds in a vast rebate for it's contributions.

         It should be duly noted that the UK had almost set itself up for such circumstances. A majority of the Common Market's interests lay in funding European farmers as a means of feeding the economy. Great Britain being a country that mostly imports it's agriculture was left with less than it was putting in, whereas smaller countries in the EEC saw the exact opposite. While truly being dealt and unfair hand, rather than asking for reform and in effect continued positive relations (a withered, spineless stand typical of an election-fearing politician), Thatcher demanded retribution. While it came to the shock and disbelief of many, it held in line with Thatcher's long-announced viewpoints.

         She had always been in favor of small government, and the EEC was simply one more step towards larger, all-encompassing organizations for Europe. Thatcher being a strong proponent of maintaining GB's identity in the tumultuous political climate, was far from willing to sign deals that would surrender the authority of the British government. It would in effect be national suicide. Rather than try to be one with Europe, Thatcher sought to reign over their competitors economically. This proved difficult with GB's huge inflation rate and rising monumental unemployment.

         West Germany however, was proving itself to be an economic juggernaut, who had seen positive exchange rates in the post-war years. To counteract, Thatcher's Chancellor of the Exchequer, Nigel Lawson proposed “shadowing” the Deutsche Mark. Given that the exchange rate mechanism is followed by all, investors would see value in investing in the pound sterling if it held equal weight with the powerful Deutsche Mark. However this proved to be ineffectual and eventually raised the rate of inflation even further for the UK.

         Ideally, Thatcher would rather have the UK stand alone, as it had always held a sense of regality that is unfound in similar European powers. Perhaps it was the shared experience of war-torn battlefields on their homeland that made the nations of mainland Europe band together during the post-war era. Great Britain, which saw no invasion and held off little attackers on its own soil, was much less inspired to immediately join the EEC. Rather, it was the promise of the free trade routes and shared market, which would prove utterly beneficial and ultimately convincing. Britain being the island it is has little more resources other than lead and coal. Being faced with a fate dependent upon trade, the only logical solution is to see that trade brought about in the simplest fashion.

         By 1986 the Single European Act proposed to abolish all trade barriers between contributing nations. For Thatcher's cabinet this was precisely what they wanted, as they signed on. The fact that this was a far from selfless act with the sole interest of her country in mind, made the decision all the more clear.  However when it came to talks of joining a universal European economy or overarching political union, Thatcher's point of view was made extremely clear. She would have no overreaching governance for Europe, citing the Soviet Union as a failed experiment in overarching control. She says in her famous speech in Bruges 1988, “It is ironic that just when those countries such as the Soviet Union, which have tried to run everything from the centre, are learning that success depends on dispersing power and decisions away from the centre, some in the community seem to want to move in the opposite direction.”

         The fact is that a centralized bank would be just as devastating to Britain as would a centralized government. All income would be dependent upon the interest rates of the conglomerate, rather than the individual states. Not only that, but the initial conversion of monetary funds would be utterly devastating for her country. Economic liberty was a prime focus of Thatcher's time as prime minister; to go against such ideals would be heresy.

         Thatcher also cites the pride that comes from being a countryman rather than a European, and how that identity may become shattered with a European Union. While national pride was always an obvious quality of Thatcher, the idea that other nations should also be equally prideful is worth noting.

         Simply, priority lay in abolishing means for individual nations to support one another, not become dependent upon each of their neighbors. Thatcher mentions the importance of civilian border control in order to fight terrorism, drug trafficking and illegal immigration. While these are all still issues being dealt with, they are ones that have always plagued national borders. To that effect, they are ones that Thatcher saw as eternal issues that cannot be forgotten. In fact, when the European Court of Human Rights determined that Britain's prisons were in breach of European standards, Thatcher refused to give in to their demands. By that time in 1988, she simply stated that she would “consider the judgment carefully and also the human rights of the victims and potential victims of terrorism.” This was in reference to her attempts to extradite suspected terrorist Patrick Ryan.

         It seems as if she saw the European Union as something akin to a child's dream, a fool's endeavor founded in high ideals and low intelligence. Blind adoration for an idea, a unified European community, cannot trump common sense. This is easily reflected in the Westland affair of 1986, in which cabinet members proposed using helicopters manufactured in Europe. Thacher sought to purchase better-made, cheaper helicopters from the United States, in lieu of maintaining superficial ties to Europe. These ties seemed all but non-existent in the face of economic opportunity.

         However these values of money and self-preservation against the well-being of the greater European community, were not in line with all inside the conservative party. Thatcher was forced by Foreign Secretary Sir Geoffery Howe and Chancellor Nigel Lawson to agree to the Madrid Conditions. Effectively, they forced upon Thatcher their hopes for Britain to join the Exchange Rate Mechanism that Europe was proposing at the time. This was the first of a number of situations in which Thatcher's authority as prime minister was compromised by her cabinet members. However this is not to say that her ideals or ideas of Britain's relation to Europe, had changed. In fact it was quite the opposite. In order to maintain her position, Thatcher had to swallow compromises.

         In 1990 the Conservative party, of note former cabinet member Geoffery Howe stood to oppose her headstrong opinions. Thatcher at the time, had been refusing to set a time table for Britain to join a single European currency (the future Euro). It was a given that Conservatives were losing seats to Labour at the time, and it seemed as if drastic action needed to be taken. Previously, backbench MP Sir Anthony Meyer challenged Thatcher for leadership, only to be defeated. Despite the lack of a threat Meyer posed in the election, his action undermined her authority and highlighted that several MP s were not in line with Thatcher.

         By 1990, Michael Heseltine, a former Thatcher cabinet member, took it upon himself to take advantage of Thatcher's waning popularity. She had recently incurred the Poll Tax, which declared flat rate taxes for each citizen of each region, dependent upon the needs of the local governments. The party was also left uneasy with her statements made in October towards the head of the European Commission, Jacques Delors. Her words towards an eventual centralized government rang clear as day, “No. No. No.” It was at this time that Howe resigned, and Heseltine challenged Thatcher for leadership of the Conservative party.

         By the first ballot, Thatcher had won, but just barely beating out Heseltine. The message was clear, but still Thatcher contested the second ballot. It is believed by most that Heseltine simply threw his hat into the ballot to undermine Thatcher, and set the stage for a third contender. In effect, this is precisely what happened. While her supporters in the cabinet said they would follow her wholeheartedly, the had little to no faith that she would win the next ballot. Her strength had been compromised. By November 1990, Thatcher resigned from her position, rather than face defeat in the second ballot.

         Ultimately, to say Thatcher changed her attitude towards Europe would be entirely false. In effect it was her resolution that was her undoing. Ironically it was this same factor that made her such a powerful and dominating figure as well as prime minister. If she ever compromised on an issue, it was not in due part to sympathies or like-mindedness; it was for survival. Even that proved not to be enough to maintain her seat in power. She constantly fought against ideas that would make Britain anything but a stand-alone agent.

         In effect, Thatcher always viewed her European neighbors as just that, neighbors. There was no sympathetic underlying sense of brotherhood. There was never a point in making her and her nation become one in the same with others whom were once their mortal enemies merely thirty years previously. Perhaps it is indeed because Britain saw no invasion of their own lands that the country gained a mindset to stand apart from the rest of the continent. However it is of note that neighboring island, Ireland, had faced the same, and retained a huge pro-European mindset (then again, one can argue this was done simply in spite of Britain).

         Truthfully, Thatcher maintained her standing even beyond her term as prime minister. In March 2002 she stated in her book Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World, that the European Union was “fundamentally unreformable” and “a classic utopian project, a monument to the vanity of intellectuals, a programme whose inevitable destiny is in failure.” While it may seem hypocritical to point out that vanity of other thinkers, it is important in politics to always remember that hypocrisy is merely a stamp laid upon by those who read far too much into things.

         It seems Thatcher was adamant in keeping separate from Europe, if seemingly for no other reason than pure unabated spite. In her book she again argues that Britain would be better off joining the North American Free Trade Area, rather than bothering to negotiate terms of membership with its European neighbors. To in effect, destroy ties with those nations geographically connected to one's own, for sake of economic and personal gain, Thatcher makes her stance clear. Even in her waning years, her stance never has, and never will, falter.