ABSTRACT
Traditional anti-marketeers were joined by new Thatcherite Eurosceptics constituting a powerful group in the party that opposed 'Europe' as anti-thetical to British interests and identities. To begin with these straggles were expressed in the elite of the party and, in particular, between Thatcher and her more pragmatic and European minded ministers. This chapter explores how these splits and divisions emerged and developed over particular policy areas and how they resulted in the resignation of Thatcher as Prime Minister. It analyses conflicts from the perspective of the discussion of British exceptionalism and the politics of modernisation. As an economic strategy, Thatcherism depended on the favourable external enviromnent that had been created by the collapse of international Fordism that was initiated by the crisis in US hegemony. The splits in the leadership and the party over the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) and economic and monetary union (EMU) represented fundamental strategic divisions within the Conservative party.
