When Brexiters and Johnsonites talk about Margaret Thatcher,
they tend to speak in tones of hushed reverence, but thanks to some good work
by the Guardian on newly released
papers, we now know that our current prime minister and the person most to
blame for Brexit played a crucial role in bringing her down.
It is not mentioned much these days, but for most of her career,
Thatcher was unambiguously pro-European – campaigning enthusiastically for
Remain in the 1975 referendum and then perhaps doing more than anyone else to
create the Single Market.
But by 1990, she and her party were losing popularity and
divisions over Europe among her colleagues were beginning to surface, so
Thatcher decided to throw the anti-EU contingent a bit of red meat (sound
familiar?)
The supplier was the Daily
Telegraph’s correspondent on what was then called the EC (European Community),
one Boris Johnson, who was known for writing highly entertaining anti-Brussels
stories, which often had the drawback of being made up.
Johnson had attacked the European Commission president,
Jacques Delors (a favourite bête noire
of the right-wing press - 'Up Yours, Delors!' etc) claiming that he was endangering our sovereignty. The
Foreign Office drew the article to Thatcher’s attention with a warning that it
wasn’t true.
But Thatcher used it as the basis of her famous: ‘No! No!
No!’ speech, which alarmed her more sensible MPs and ministers. (Note for
younger readers: in those days some leading figures in the Conservative Party actually
cared about what was in the interests of the UK.) And within a month, Britain’s
first woman prime minister was gone.
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