Thatcher and the EU
While Thatcher has always
been known as an outspoken Eurosceptic, she was not all against Europe and the
European Union, always advocating a united Europe against communism, which she
despised.
Britain had joined the EU
six years before Thatcher came to power and while she did not seem to be too
fond of the EU, she had no choice but to accept the situation. Thatcher was
very much a proud British remembering the great days of the empire and the
policies exercised back then. To be tied
up with the continental countries, which she also blamed for both the world
wars, was not what she wanted. This and her hatred for bureaucracy, something
she had tried to reduce in the UK, which she said was way too extensive in EU,
made her very resistant to any EU policies other than the free market. Among
others she heavily criticized the defense and the agricultural policies.
Apart from the free market
she also liked the idea of a strong united Europe against the communistic
Eastern Europe which she saw as the biggest threat against peace and democracy.
With a different European Union she might have been a leading force. Her views
of the European Union became rather clear during her very famous “Bruges
speech” showing of both her feverish attempts of showing Britain as the
liberator of Europe and also her opinions on the EU bureaucracy and policies:
“But we British have in a
very special way contributed to Europe. Over the centuries we have fought to
prevent Europe from falling under the dominance of a single power.”
“We
have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain, only
to see them re-imposed at a European level with a European super-state exercising
a new dominance from Brussels.”
“If
we cannot reform those Community policies which are patently wrong or
ineffective and which are rightly causing public disquiet, then we shall not
get the public support for the Community's future development.”
Thatcher’s views on the
European Union were as firm and definite as her opinions on any other matter.
She is credited for much of the euroscepticism that is still very prevalent in
today’s Britain. As late as the beginning of the millennia she once again
expressed very harsh opinions against the EU, urging the UK to leave it.
Sources:
By: Isak Wernehov, Samuel Macario, Adam Ryde, Daniel Roslund
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