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Posted on 03/18/2002 6:14:45 AM PST by antidemocommie
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Lady Thatcher calls for renegotiation of Britains terms of EU membership to enable it to leave the common agricultural and fisheries policies, the common foreign and security policy, and to reassert domestic control over trade policy. She also suggests joining the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement, a decision that would be seen as incompatible with EU membership. Although she does not say it in so many words, such moves would mean that Britain was no longer effectively in the EU. In any event the demands, which she urges an incoming Tory government to make as a preliminary step, would be refused by the rest of the EU, leaving Britain no alternative but to quit. She writes in Statecraft: "It is frequently said to be unthinkable that Britain should leave the European Union. But the avoidance of thought about this is a poor substitute for judgment." Lady Thatcher's views will embarrass Iain Duncan Smith after a period in which the Tory leader has engineered a party truce on Europe and at a time when he is preparing to modernise his party's appeal. While he is poised today to attack Tony Blair over the outcome of the Barcelona summit, the Prime Minister is certain to use the Commons exchanges to challenge him to disavow Lady Thatcher. Her remarks will be a godsend to a Government struggling to recover from accusations of sleaze and lack of delivery over public service reform. Mr Duncan Smith was always one of Lady Thatcher's strongest supporters, and there are several members of the Shadow Cabinet, such as Bernard Jenkin, John Whittingdale, John Bercow and Tim Collins, who would privately agree with much of what she says. As many as 30 Tory MPs would probably privately support a "withdrawalist" line. Mr Duncan Smith has successfully urged his colleagues to speak less about Europe and to concentrate on domestic issues. While making plain that the Tories would campaign against the euro if there was a referendum, he has taken the sting out of the debate by saying that MPs would be free to campaign in the opposite camp if they wished. Mr Duncan Smith's spokesman said of Lady Thatchers remarks last night: "Naturally relations between Iain and Lady Thatcher are close and cordial and she has done us the courtesy of sending an advance copy of the book. We will not comment directly on the book but we will read it with interest. "Iain's position on Europe was summed up in an article this weekend. He said: "We must keep our currency. It is the only way we can be masters of our own taxes, mortgage rates and spending on our schools and hospitals. I will never allow EU membership to mean Britain loses control over its own destiny. While I lead the Conservatives I will always fight to keep the pound." Lady Thatcher stops short of calling for a total withdrawal from Europe, preferring to retain some existing arrangements while opting out of "present and future mechanisms which harm our interests or restrict our freedom of action". This might not be as difficult as it sounds because the "blunt truth is that the rest of the European Union needs us more than we need them." Britain had substantial advantages in any renegotiation because it was a substantial net importer from the rest of the EU, a substantial contributor to the CAP, its fish stocks were extremely important to other countries, and it remained a global power. She goes on: "Against this background we should have every confidence that we can achieve a sensible framework within which to defend and pursue our interest while having co-operative relations with the European countries. "The preliminary step, I believe, should be for an incoming Conservative government to declare publicly that it seeks fundamental renegotiation of Britain's terms of EU membership. The objectives would be a withdrawal from the CAP, an end to our adherence to the common fisheries policy, withdrawal from all the entanglements of a common foreign and security policy and a reassertion of control of our trade policy." Lady Thatcher's coolness towards Europe is legendary, but her book takes it to a new intensity. "During my lifetime most of the problems the world has faced have come, in one fashion or another, from mainland Europe, and the solutions from outside it," she writes. "That generalisation is clearly true of the Second World War. Nazism was, after all, a European ideology, the Third Reich an attempt at European domination.
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