RIP Margaret Thatcher. She was a remarkable politician and she did some extraordinary things.
Cameron did find the right words. I would agree with what he said, characterizing Thatcher as divisive figure: ” We can’t deny that Lady Thatcher divided opinion,” Cameron said. “For many of us, she was and is an inspiration. For others she was a force to be defined against.”But if there is one thing that cuts through all of this – one thing that runs through everything she did – it was her lion-hearted love for this country. She was the patriot prime minister and she fought for Britain’s interests every single step of the way”. Realistic with numbers an policies, Margaret Thatcher was indomitably outspoken against submerging all the European nationalities into a single superstate some 21 years ago.
On this score she was indomitable, ferociously scathing at the willingness of independent European nations giving up their autonomy to a what she called “a bunch of bureaucrats in Brussels”. She did not exactly predict the descent of the Euro, the financial crisis in Cyprus or the meltdown in most European sovereign securities or the need to bailout the banks of Italy, Spain and France.
But in broad lines her prophecy 21 years ago has come true lately. The grand experiment of a single monetary system, a single economic policy, working towards a common defense policy, even a common foreign policy meant to her that “80% of national economic decisions will be made in Brussels or by the EZB.” Actually, it has been more the need of the European Central Bank and Germany to prop up the staggering debt-laden economies of Greece, Spain, Italy, France and try to devise stability for Cyprus. Imagine having banks in small economies than Greece and Cyprus become an Achilles heel for Europe. Thatcher would have been furious.
Lady Thatcher insisted that a single currency was impossible. It would never work. “Every single fixed exchange rate has cracked in the end. We’re all at different levels of development of our economies. Some countries simply couldn’t live up to a single currency… We should each of us be proud to be separate countries cooperating together.”
And she doesn’t exactly look wrong in her worry over the prospect of German “domination” of Europe– though “domination” today means taking money from them. Thatcher was going to be damned if she made Britain subservient to Germany.
