ABSTRACT
Margaret Thatcher was a member of the Cabinet which took Britain into the European Community in 1973. Even if the European scene had been, in 1979, favourable from the British perspective, Thatcher would have brought to it the same forthright, no-nonsense, sometimes peremptory, style of policy making that she brought to domestic politics. There will always be debate about whether Mrs Thatcher’s uncompromising temperament and combative behaviour were an aid or a hindrance to securing British objectives. Thatcher’s significant achievement was to secure a lasting agreement, which has endured from 1984, with some changes but no interruption. Margaret Thatcher was not the sole author of the single market project, but she was a reformist leader at a time when the main driver of European policy on the continent was institutional rather than practical. In the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher appeared to stand, almost alone, on one side of a divide.
