The Downfall of Margaret Thatcher
| Date | 01 July 1991 |
| Published date | 01 July 1991 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1991.tb00900.x |
THE
MODERN LAW REVIEW
Volume
54
July
1991
No.
4
The
Downfall of
Margaret Thatcher
Rodney Brazier”
A
few months after
the
resignation of Harold Wilson in
1976
Tony Benn noted
in his diary
the
remarkable transformation which had taken place in the former Prime
Minister. He wrote: ‘Wilson has just disappeared from sight. Once his patronage
has gone, there’s nothing left. Nobody thinks about him any more.’!
No
one could
make a similar assessment of Mrs Margaret Thatcher, who was on several tests
an outstanding Prime Minister who has left a considerable political mark. My purpose
is, however, not to assess all aspects of her premiership. Rather,
it
is to analyse
the circumstances of her departure and a number of constitutional issues which were
thrown up by it, and then to evaluate the constitutional legacy which she has
bequeathed.
My
thesis is that, for constitutional lawyers at any rate, Mrs Thatcher
will
be remembered as much for the manner of her overthrow as for her
few
lasting
effects on the British constitution.
The
Fall
In order that Mrs Thatcher’s enforced resignation can be adequately understood
-
especially in the future when it may be looked to as a precedent
-
it is essential
that (as with any constitutional precedent) the material facts are established as
fully
as possible. What were those material facts?
Decline
and
Fall
When Margaret Thatcher dies there might well be engraved on her heart the simple
words ‘poll tax’ and ‘Europe.’
For
it
was the politics of the poll tax and of Europe
which caused her fall from power,
in
an involuntary resignation which, having been
brought about entirely by her own party, was unprecedented
in
modern British
constitutional history.* The widespread and deep unpopularity
of
the poll tax is
now publicly accepted by Ministers, and indeed the problems involved in collecting
it have been cited by Mr John Major as a central reason for his Cabinet’s decision
to scrap it. Opposition to the poll tax developed even in traditional Conservative
heartlands. It is, of course, perceived as Mrs Thatcher’s own tax which she single-
mindedly pushed through following her pledge
in
1974
to abolish domestic rates.
*
Reader in Constitutional Law, University
of
Manchester.
1
Benn,
Agnimf
fhe
Tide;
Diaries
1973-1976
(London: Hutchinson, 1989), p693.
2
Analogous precedents
will
be
examined later.
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The
Modern
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[Vol.
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She was its mother: Nicholas Ridley, as her fifth Environment Secretary, was its
father and perhaps the only other true believer
in
the Cabinet.3 To them, it was
unthinkable that radical cosmetic surgery on their progeny might be necessary
to
make
it
less repellent
in
voters’ eyes
-
even less that
it
should be strangled soon
after birth. The unflinching belief that the electorate would in time come
to
like
this ugly infant was a fundamental political miscalculation.
Nemesis was also waiting for Mrs Thatcher in Europe. Her belligerent style towards
the European Community in the early years of her time as Prime Minister was popular
in
Britain, and her style struck a xenophobic chord which was amplified by the
tabloid press. Yet
it
is now clear that by the time of her Bruges speech in
1988
many Ministers had come
to
have grave doubts about the wisdom of such an
unremittingly negative approach
to
European de~elopment.~ In particular, we now
know that Nigel Lawson and Sir Geoffrey Howe at least had wanted Britain
to
enter
the exchange rate mechanism of the European monetary system five years before
entry took place.5 Her refusal in
1989
to
sack Sir Alan Walters as her part-time
economic adviser, despite
his
public description of the
ERM
as ‘half-baked’, opened
a gulf, on the one hand between the Chancellor of the Exchequer and government
policy (which was
to
join when the conditions were right), and, on the other, the
Prime Minister and Sir Alan. Mr Lawson’s consequent resignation in October
of
that year started a weakening of Mrs Thatcher’s political position in the govern-
ment.6 His place was taken by the tyro Foreign Secretary of only three months’
standing, Mr John Major.’
In
the wake of Mr Lawson’s resignation, a
Conservative MP did what up
to
then had been considered unthinkable: Sir Anthony
Meyer challenged the Prime Minister for the Conservative leadership. The signifi-
cance of Sir Anthony’s bid in the autumn of
1989
was not that Mrs Thatcher easily
beat him off, but that anyone had dared to challenge her
at
all
-
and that
60
Conservative MPs (or
16%
of the parliamentary party) declined
to
vote for her.8
A
year later, at the European Council
in
late October
1990,
Mrs Thatcher faced
a Community determined
to
speed up European integration and moves towards a
single currency. Consistent
to
the last, she opposed
it
all; indeed, once she had
delivered her prepared statement on the Rome summit to
the
House
of
Commons,
she cut loose
in
reply
to
questions, famously dismissing some constitutional
suggestions which had been made by M. Jacques Delors with the cry
‘No,
no,
n0!’9 In all this, the Opposition understandably looked gleefully on, both at the
discomfiture of Mrs Thatcher’s Ministers, and at the Prime Minister’s continuing
decline
in
the opinion polls, which showed at the end of
1989
that she was the most
unpopular Prime Minister since polling had begun
50
years before.
3
His resignation
in
July
1990,
following his highly disparaging comments published in
The
Spectaror
magazine about Germany’s aspirations in Europe, cost the Prime Minister her closest ideological
companion
in
the Cabinet.
4
A
typical passage
in
that speech referred to Britain not having rolled back the frontiers of the state
only to
see
thcm reimposed at a European level, with
a
European super-state exercising a new dominance
from Brussels.
5
See Sir Geoffrey Howe at HC Deb vol
180
col461
13
November
1990.
The
United Kingdom joined
the ERM
in
1990, just before the annual Conservative Party conference.
6
For his speech explaining the resignation see
HC
Deb
vol
159
col
208
31
October
1989.
7
This emergency reshuffle followed a planned but bungled Cabinet reshuffle which the Prime Minister
had carried out in July
1989.
Her easing of Sir Geoffrey Howe out
of
the Foreign Office against his
wishes was unpopular with many Conservatives, and her concession to him of sweeteners as the price
for moving (such as the titlc of Deputy Prime Minister and the continued
use
of a country house)
called into question her political sureness
of
touch and her continued authority over Ministers.
8
Mrs Thatcher won by
314
votes to
33,
with
24
spoiled papers and
3
abstentions.
9
For the statement see HC Deb vol
178
col
869, and for the outburst
ibid
col
873 30
October
1990.
472
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