• theinspectorst
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    2 years ago

    Thatcher actively campaigned Remain in 1975 and was a key architect of the EU’s single market during the 1980s - arguably her greatest and most far-reaching political achievement.

    • @Jackthelad
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      22 years ago

      Indeed. But she was a vehement opponent of the Maastricht Treaty, and opposed further EU integration the whole time she was in the House of Lords.

      Her Bruges speech in 1988 made it very clear what she thought about moves towards a more federal Europe.

      • @[email protected]
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        22 years ago

        Is it fair to say that her views on the EU were more nuanced than your original comments suggested?

        • @Jackthelad
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          12 years ago

          Not really. Because the EEC and the EU are very different entities.

            • @Jackthelad
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              12 years ago

              The EEC was an economic union, the EU is a political union.

              • @[email protected]
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                12 years ago

                Is it possible to join one without the other? Can you join the EU, for example, without EEC membership?

                • @Jackthelad
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                  12 years ago

                  The EEC doesn’t exist anymore. The institutions were absorbed into the EU.

                  • @[email protected]
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                    12 years ago

                    So they are defacto the same? And probably Maggie’s views on it would have been more nuanced than you first suggested? Shed like the EEC bits not the others?

      • theinspectorst
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        02 years ago

        It seems like a leap to believe that the architect of the single market would have supported the UK leaving the single market.

        Not all Eurosceptics became Brexiters. David Cameron, George Osborne, William Hague, Philip Hammond - all genuine and vocal critics of political aspects of the EU who voted and campaigned Remain.

        • @Jackthelad
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          12 years ago

          Who said anything about leaving the single market?

          You don’t have to be in the EU to be in the single market.