Thatcher
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At the next summit in Dublin, her single-mindedness meant that no work could be carried out unless and until the British claim for a rebate was discussed and agreed. She did not succeed this time, and the row over contributions rumbled on. In her view, the EU owed Britain a reduction of £1,000 million of ‘our money’. This argument crystallized the personal and political position of Britain over this first term of office. Although the French president, Valéry Giscard D’Estaing, was a conservative he was an Olympian, not a patrician in Margaret Thatcher’s eyes.3 She meant that he used the prestige of his name and family history to exclude the grocer’s daughter from informal gatherings, and pomp and circumstance to marginalise her at formal ones. She had much more in common politically with the socialist German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt. Only different views of Europe separated them: His vision was of a united and federal Europe, hers of a European Union supporting free trade and made up of independent nations. The two men were friends, and hugely influential in Europe. Margaret Thatcher was not a friend to either, and was fighting for influence in European decision- making. To the concern of the Foreign Office which would have liked a wider discussion and a less obdurate and focused approach, she made it clear that the question of Britain’s economic contribution would be the single major issue in dealing with the European Union. Even the Cabinet wished to smooth over the issue. In May, she was forced to accept an interim agreement because the Foreign Secretary, Peter Carrington, told her he personally would accept no other course of action, and it was clear that at least six colleagues and 70 Tory MPs would support him. The issue of British rebate continues to rumble in the background of EU negotiations.
Before Dublin, and scarcely back from Strasbourg, she travelled to the economic conference in Tokyo for the group of seven principal western industrial powers (the G7). She attracted huge interest at this summit – as much or more for being a woman in a male enclave as for the role she took. For her part, she became irritated with the process, refusing to enter into the first-name jocularity of the world leaders and disinterested in the main business of oil pricing and control. On the way, she had an unscheduled dinner at Moscow airport with the Soviet Prime Minister Alexei Kosygin. Here there were two issues – current American policy was to agree arms limitation with the Russians and Margaret Thatcher disagreed with that (six months later, when Russia invaded Afghanistan, she felt vindicated). Secondly, there was the problem of Vietnamese refugees. Could Russia put pressure on its fellow communists in Vietnam? The short-term answer was no. Her third summit that year was to be held in Lusaka for the meeting of the Commonwealth heads of government.
Despite these high-profile pressures, the biggest issue of this first term was to find some resolution to the problem of Rhodesia. In 1965, the Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith had made a unilateral declaration of independence from British rule, flouting the policy that former colonies would only be recognised as independent states if they had introduced democratic elections and majority rule. His minority white government had struggled on until 1979, when elections were held and Bishop Muzorewa was elected as head of a black government. To bring peace to the country, this government needed international recognition. Margaret Thatcher’s first instinct was to support the bishop even though he had been elected while Robert Mugabe was still leading a terrorist force, and the rebels had not been in included in the process. The Foreign Office was convinced, and convinced her, that this government would never achieve recognition from the surrounding Black African states. To do nothing was impossible – the sanctions that had creaked on since 1965 were unpopular, and would probably not be renewed by her government. Her response was pro-active and brave. Conservative ministers talked to every important player – in contrast to her attitude in Ireland, this included Mugabe and other leaders of guerrilla forces. These discussions and Foreign-Office briefings changed her view of independence: before this point she had argued against extensions of freedom for Commonwealth countries. By 1985 her opinion had almost reversed, from the need to maintain Britain’s colonies to – in practice, if you are a parliamentary democracy, then the holding of them [colonial territories] really can only be a temporary thing, until you bring them to... those same institutions which protect their liberty, in the same way as we developed ours. So if you look at it philosophically, it could only be a temporary thing, not a power structure; and that, I think, was shown years ago as people went first from colonies to dominion status in the pre-war period.4
In Rhodesia, willingness to grasp the nettle, change tack and take risks paid off: Britain took direct control of the country through the governorship of Christopher Soames while more elections were held. Soames and his wife moved to Rhodesia before any cease-fire had been declared, at some personal risk. On 18 April 1980, Rhodesia, governed by a democratically-elected Mugabe, received independence. The experience tested the relationship between her and Peter Carrington, the Foreign Secretary on whom much policy in this first term would rely. In her memoirs she describes a heated exchange on the long journey out, when he suggested that the best they could do was damage-limitation. At that time, she says, she had never heard that phrase, and she intended to do very much better than that.5 While she continued to move away from the Foreign Office, some individuals, including Carrington, could influence her. Rhodesia was a strange first task for a woman whose personal beliefs would argue for retaining Commonwealth countries under British rule, but a necessary resolution to the problem for which she received due credit.
From the first I regarded it as my duty to do everything I could to reinforce and further President Reagan’s bold strategy to win the Cold War.
--THATCHER
By the time she embarked on her second term of office in June 1983, Margaret Thatcher was an experienced, if not popular, diplomat. She had scored success over Rhodesia, established a European refund to Britain, and of course had won absolute victory in the Falklands. After that war her confidence in the superiority of Britain was manifest: I believe Britain has now found a role. It is in upholding International Law and teaching the nations of the world how to live.6 The lessons would not have included the inner-city riots and public opposition that marked the end of her first term in office. Her attitude to the peace was typically intransigent. As far as she was concerned, she was the victor, and the question was now settled. Argentina did not see it the same way. Arguments over supporting and owning the small Falkland Islands continued throughout her period in government and are not settled today.
The victory was helped along by Ronald Reagan, US President since 1980 and a natural ally. With him, Margaret Thatcher formed the close friendship she lacked in Europe. This was a personal and political friendship: she liked Reagan, though she did not always trust him, and she was adamant that Britain and America were natural allies and that Britain owed America for its intervention into the world wars. More important, the Cold War between Britain and Russia was affecting British economy – current defence policy was to invest in nuclear weapons for Britain, but also to support America, while America contributed to Britain’s defence. Deterrence depended on a strong America. Her memoirs say: From the first I regarded it as my duty to do everything I could to reinforce and further President Reagan’s bold strategy to win the Cold War.7 And she did not move from that position, even when the Americans invaded Grenada, a British protectorate, without telling her. Worse, they told the Foreign Office they were not going to invade, leaving the Foreign Secretary to give misleading information to the House. This was tricky for Margaret Thatcher. She was furious with Washington: Hugo Young describes her as ‘incandescent’.8 Not only had Reagan humiliated her, America had also broken international law. Washington had thought that she would support the invasion, aimed as it was at unseating a Marxist government. But as far as she was concerned – I think as a general rule we in the Western countries, the Western democracies, use our force to defend our way of life, we do not use it to walk into other people’s countries, independent sovere
ign territories. We try to extend our beliefs not by force but by persuasion. So there is a general rule that you do not cross into an independent sovereign country. It’s not an inviolate rule, but it’s a very, very good one. I think, therefore, that if you’re going to go into an independent sovereign country – and don’t forget Grenada was given independence in 1974 with a fully independent constitution with a legal system, with democracy, it had gone by 1979 when Maurice Bishop seized power as a Marxist – but I think it’s a good fault not to walk into another person’s country and therefore, let me put it this way... you have to be absolutely certain that if you do there is no choice, or if there is no other way... . You mentioned oppression, Communism – yes, I hate it. There are many, many peoples in countries in the world who would love to be free of it, love to be free of it, that doesn’t mean to say that we can just walk into them and say now you are free, I’m afraid.9 This was an answer which also showed her usual detailed briefing. Her friendship with President Reagan did not seriously falter, however.
In the same week, there were massive demonstrations in London against the arrival of US cruise missiles in Britain. The Grenadian action could have threatened that decision, not least because it strengthened American opinion. She knew this, but did not hesitate: We have a job to do here. We have to get Cruise missiles sited in pursuit of the NATO decision. We have to take the lead in doing it... . It was the most important thing in East/West terms and that you do not in fact put in jeopardy. All right, things somehow changed on the Monday [invasion of Grenada], they did not tell us anything over the weekend. But even then you just go back and look at the very first principles.10
Later, and again against the advice of her Cabinet and public opinion, she supported the American bombing of Libya. In a response to Neil Kinnock at question time she said: I remind him again that the United States, our staunch ally, keeps over 330,000 troops in Europe to defend the freedom of Europe and that, without the United States and Britain, Europe would not today be free. We must continue to keep that Alliance.11 This summed up her personal and political view that America deserved and should have absolute British loyalty, and that Britain would benefit from this special relationship. In 1991, she committed British forces without hesitation to the first Gulf War, to fight with the Americans and the other Coalition forces.
The relationship with Reagan was fundamental to the relationship with Soviet Russia, and here great things were happening. In 1983, Francis Pym went to the Soviet Union in a first small attempt to break the frozen impasse of the ‘Cold War’. Margaret Thatcher was becoming convinced that it was necessary to talk to the Soviet Bloc, and so was Ronald Reagan. This was a huge change for both leaders. Reagan had been used to calling the Soviet bloc the ‘focus of evil’ in the modern world, and Margaret Thatcher had horrified her diplomats with her outbursts ever since the ‘Iron Lady’ speech in the 1970s. Now though, she was convinced that the advantages of the free market would be evident, if Communist leaders had the opportunity to experience them. Perhaps innocently, but very patronisingly, she made this absolutely clear: they do not know how to think in any other terms and that, really, is one of the reasons why I invited Mr. Gorbachev here long before he is where he is now, because I wanted to be able to get some of the younger people up to show them how very much better a free society works. They may not understand how it works, but they can see how it works. They can see the massively increased prosperity.12
One day liberty will dawn on the other side of the wall.
--THATCHER
Her relationship with Gorbachev was crucial to defusing the Cold War. She met him shortly after she visited Hungary, at the funeral of the Soviet president Yuri Andropov. Her view, that Communism could not contain its people for ever, was explicit. In October 1982, she visited the Berlin Wall and said: Every decade since the war the Soviet leaders have been reminded that their pitiless ideology only survives because it is maintained by force. But the day comes when the anger and frustration of the people is so great that force cannot contain it. Then the edifice cracks: the mortar crumbles... One day liberty will dawn on the other side of the wall.13
But the cost of defence spending to continue the Cold War was prohibitive, and something had to be done. This was agreed on both sides of the Atlantic – Reagan was writing to his Soviet opposite numbers at this time, but getting no response. In December 1984, she invited Gorbachev and his wife to Chequers. She had a wide-ranging discussion with him – Denis was also charming to and charmed by Gorbachev’s wife, Raisa. The scene was set for discussion when Gorbachev later became Soviet leader in 1985.
Her preparations were almost torpedoed by America’s ‘Star Wars’ initiative – a research programme intended to develop a new space-based anti-missile system that would make ballistic missiles obsolete. This possibility worried Europe, who saw themselves caught between two warring powers. It undermined nuclear deterrence, in which Margaret Thatcher believed and in which she had invested considerable money. Worse, it was clear that the Soviets would retaliate by creating equal weapons. Reagan and Gorbachev were meeting, and their discussion included phasing out nuclear weapons. This was wholly against Margaret Thatcher’s beliefs – she truly believed that peace lay in the ‘stand off’ of equal nuclear armament, and she had invested a great deal of British money in Trident ballistic missiles. If she was to prevent the Soviet Union from withdrawing from arms talks and America retreating into isolationism she had little time. On the Sunday, she saw Gorbachev at Chequers. On Wednesday, she was in Beijing signing the agreement by which Hong Kong was returned to the Chinese. On Thursday, she was in Hong Kong reassuring the population. On Saturday, she was at Camp David to meet with President Reagan. In 1984 the journey was mammoth, the travelling uncomfortable, and each meeting vital. Her visit to America cemented the relationship with the USA, re-assured Europe, and elicited public statements that reassured the Russians. This was only one step on the path to discussion between America and Russia: The importance of nuclear deterrence was the one issue on which I knew I could not take the Reagan Administration for granted.14
By 1990, and before her resignation, the Berlin Wall had come down and Germany was reunified. There is no doubt that Margaret Thatcher’s personal style was central to this process. She was well aware of the danger of opening dialogue with the East and mediating their position with America: if America and the Soviet Union made a private deal, Britain and Europe could well be marginalised. If Russia and America agreed between them to abandon nuclear weapons, then Britain’s arsenal would be an expensive white elephant, and Britain would be defenceless to other forms of attack. She knew that her personal friendship with Reagan would not, on its own, prevent this from happening: it was in American interests to find a way of ending the existing nuclear stalemate. Faced with a problem, Margaret Thatcher used her own well-honed skills to solve it – she went out to canvas. Starting in Hungary, she and her ministers set out to encourage Eastern bloc people to see the British Prime Minister as the embodiment of the benefits of capitalism. In Moscow, she went on a ‘walkabout’ in a Moscow housing estate – ‘it almost appeared that the Prime Minister was fighting a by-election in Moscow North’ one commentator remarked. ‘Margaret Thatcher,’ said another, ‘in her Aquascutum wardrobe careering around the outer tenement blocks was one of the most impressive examples of political canvassing ever seen.’15 The results were beyond even her imaginings – I do not see... that there will be anything other than a Communist system in the Soviet Union in my lifetime,16 she said in this year. Acting as friend to both Russia and America meant that British interests could be defended: failing to do so could mean that Britain was pinned between the two. But this also took her and Britain on a different path from the other European states.
During her second term, relations with Europe improved slightly, if only temporarily. Margaret Thatcher wanted Europe to be a trading community, with few trade barriers and little intervention in the market. The idea of a single market-pla
ce, where different nations could buy and sell without hindrance, was her free-market dream. Pressing ahead with the single market was the common factor between the leaders: in 1986, the ‘Single European Act’ was signed. But France and Germany had a different understanding of a single market – they foresaw, and looked forward to, harmonization of social policies as well as trade. The European heads of state distrusted Margaret Thatcher’s friendship with America – she still regarded Europe as needing to be grateful for Britain and America’s help in the war. After all we [Britain and America] saved all their skins collectively in the war.17 she was reported as saying privately. Personally, her position was eased by the election of François Mitterrand as President of France. Although he was a socialist, they got on unexpectedly well. But she never considered Europe to be more than a free-trade area, and her opposition to closer European union was a strong as ever.
The necessary second step after a single market was agreed was de-regulation of prices and industrial relations. The step after that was integration of policy and practice, on ground that had been the prerogative of national governments. Some of this she should have known – for instance in 1987 it was agreed to harmonise VAT rates. Margaret Thatcher had to be forcibly reminded that provision for this was in the Treaty of Rome, and that she had been in the Cabinet that signed the treaty. The other leaders had no doubts: To them, the Single European Act signaled harmonization and integration across Europe. This came to a head in 1991, when other European heads of state signed the ‘Social Chapter’ of the Maastricht Treaty including a direct intention to implement the Community Charter of Fundamental Social Rights and requiring that social policies should be integrated across Europe. To Margaret Thatcher, this was a return to the support for workers’ rights that she had defeated at home: if legislation protected working hours, minimum standards, and health and safety practices then the employer, the industrialist, could not manage his own business. British opposition meant that an opt-out clause was included, although only Britain refused to sign.