Europe
Towards the end of the 1980s Margaret Thatcher, and so Thatcherism, became increasingly vocal in its opposition to allowing the European Union to supersede British sovereignty. In a famous 1988 Bruges speech, Thatcher declared that "We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain, only to see them reimposed at a European level, with a European superstate exercising a new dominance from Brussels".
While euro-scepticism has for many become a characteristic of "Thatcherism", Margaret Thatcher was far from consistent on the issue, only becoming truly Eurosceptic in the last years of her time as Prime Minister. Thatcher supported Britain's entry into the European Economic Community in 1973, campaigned for a yes vote in the 1975 referendum and signed the Single European Act in 1986.
Read more about this topic: Thatcherism
Famous quotes containing the word europe:
“Can we never extract this tape-worm of Europe from the brain of our countrymen?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“What passes for identity in America is a series of myths about one’s heroic ancestors. It’s astounding to me, for example, that so many people really seem to believe that the country was founded by a band of heroes who wanted to be free. That happens not to be true. What happened was that some people left Europe because they couldn’t stay there any longer and had to go someplace else to make it. They were hungry, they were poor, they were convicts.”
—James Baldwin (1924–1987)
“I’ve come to think of Europe as a hardcover book, America as the paperback version.”
—Don Delillo (b. 1926)