Margaret Thatcher: The Road to Power

The first big political challenge I faced as leader of the Conservative Party was a referendum on Britain's membership of the European Economic Community The plebiscite was Labour's promise in opposition to keep the party together For a number of reasons I would have preferred it to be a challenge on some other issue Europe is very much Ted's passion He thought that his greatest achievement was to get Britain to join the European Economic Community and now that he has lost his leadership it is natural that he should be more enthusiastic about it As was already evident during the leadership campaign there was some suspicion that I was not very enthusiastic about the issue Compared with Ted this may be the case But I do sincerely believe that it would be foolish to leave the Community; I believe that the Community provides economic links with other Western European countries which is of great strategic importance; and I particularly welcome the greater trading opportunities that membership offers by joining the Community However I do not see the artificial plant wall panels
European question as a litmus test for everything else While I believe that it is best for Britain to stay within the Community and make the best possible use of it I can equally fully understand those who in general hold the opposite view It seems to me that hyperbole about Britain's European destiny let alone about European identity is not really relevant although I sometimes use it a little in public forums For all these reasons I am extremely happy to have Ted playing a leading role on our side of the plebiscite campaign and to have Willie representing the Conservative Party as vice chair of "Britain in Europe" the organization of the "Yes" campaign established in cooperation with pro-European Labour MPs and Liberals Con O'Neill and later


Roy Jenkins were its chairmen This arrangement has two advantages and two disadvantages The advantages are that although I need to make a high-profile public appearance at the beginning and end of the campaign I have time to do other things; and secondly the most passionate Europeans in the party will be able to devote all their energies to the front line Two disadvantages I probably should have foreseen were that it would increase Ted's appetite for a comeback and that forces inside and outside the Conservative Party determined to get rid of me would try to use the all-party alliance that was running for the "Yes" vote as the core of a campaign for a "centrist" coalition government I also encountered an unexpected difficulty in reasoning The position I inherited from Ted was one of total rejection of the whole idea of holding a referendum on the grounds that it was unconstitutional and not British Even if I had wanted to change that position I did not have the time to do so; barely two weeks into my leadership artificial grass panels the Government published its white paper on the referendum Moreover by attacking the referendum as a constitutional monstrosity designed only to keep the Labour cabinet together the party could reap inexhaustible political benefits However I feel uneasy First of all there is obviously the practical problem that we have to have a plebiscite whatever the protest of the Conservative Party and we will soon have to take it seriously-and be seen to do so-if we want to get the right result Secondly and only vaguely I think that at some point in the future when a particular issue divides the country rather than the party and a general election is not an appropriate means of resolving the issue it may be necessary to call for a referendum Similarly if a far-left government backed by pugnacious trade unions tries to challenge fundamental freedoms under the guise of constitutional conventions the conservative opposition may try to do so I decided to read all the material on the faux grass wall
subject The idea of holding a referendum has a long history in British politics From the 1890s to the 1930s it was raised — sometimes by Conservative leaders — on issues such as Irish Home Rule the powers of the House of Lords and the imposition of grain tariffs


In 1945 Churchill raised the possibility of holding a referendum on the extension of the parliamentary term until the defeat of Japan In none of these cases was a de facto referendum ever held But it would be a clear mistake not to take seriously the call for a referendum I was particularly attracted by the following statement in the eighth revised edition of Diesel's Law of the Constitution "The referendum is the veto power of the people; all citizens are sovereign and they can issue orders that the Constitution cannot be amended without the direct approval of the citizens" I consulted the shadow cabinet's legal affairs spokesman Michael Havers on these arguments His answer seemed authoritative to me at the time He said that looking back at the cases in which the Conservatives have supported referendums we can say that with the exception of the food tariff case in which the party is trying to avoid a damaging split (as Labour is now) the issues involved are entirely constitutional Moreover none of these issues have been decided by Parliament and none of us have risked a unilateral breach of the Treaty He concluded that past precedents did not justify a referendum on participation in the European Economic Community hacartificialtree.com