2S - Foreign affairs: relations with Europe, including the impact of the Single European Act and Maastricht Treaty
Learn why European integration divided Conservatives, how Britain responded to the end of the Cold War, and what intervention in Bosnia revealed about British influence.
Single market and sovereignty
The Single European Act, signed in 1986 and effective from 1 July 1987, set a framework for completing the European Community's single market by 1993. Removing obstacles to trade, services, capital and movement required more than abolishing tariffs: different national rules could still prevent firms from operating across borders.
Thatcher supported the prospect of a larger competitive market. It fitted her preference for enterprise and fewer barriers to business. However, making common market rules also required common decision-making. The Act expanded qualified majority voting in the Council for relevant measures, reducing the ability of one member state to veto them. The same reform could therefore be understood as opening markets or reducing national control. Council account of the Act's effects.
Sovereignty
The authority to make binding decisions. European integration raised arguments about which decisions should remain with national institutions and which should be made jointly.
Thatcher's 1988 Bruges speech challenged a more centralised European state while affirming Britain's place in Europe. Her position was not simply opposition to all cooperation. She wanted a community of sovereign states and a market-based Europe, and opposed proposals which she believed would rebuild state intervention at European level. Jacques Delors's emphasis on a social dimension to integration appealed to Labour and trade unions but alarmed many Conservatives.
The resulting dispute had an internal mechanism: ministers who believed influence required participation faced colleagues who believed further integration threatened the reforms achieved at home. The Single European Act did not require Britain to join the ERM or adopt a future single currency. These were related but distinct policy choices; confusing them conceals why different Conservatives supported different degrees of integration.
Maastricht and party conflict
John Major hoped to place Britain at the centre of European decisions while protecting particular national interests. The Maastricht Treaty, signed in February 1992 and effective from November 1993, created the European Union and provided a route towards economic and monetary union. It also expanded cooperation beyond the existing economic community, including foreign policy and justice matters.
Major negotiated opt-outs from the final stage of monetary union and the Social Protocol. The monetary opt-out meant Britain was not obliged to adopt the future euro; the social opt-out protected his government's opposition to the agreement's additional labour and social provisions. He presented these concessions as evidence that engagement could achieve a British version of cooperation. Treaty and UK opt-outs.
Eurosceptic Conservatives did not regard the concessions as sufficient. They feared that the wider integration process would continue to reduce parliamentary sovereignty. Pro-European Conservatives thought rejection would isolate Britain from decisions affecting its economy and security. Black Wednesday in September 1992 further damaged confidence in the government's European and monetary judgement, even though the ERM and Maastricht were distinct arrangements.
The 1992 Conservative majority was small, so Maastricht rebels could seriously obstruct parliamentary business. Major's use of a confidence vote in July 1993 secured authority for his policy but demonstrated how fragile party unity had become. Treaty ratification was a governmental success accompanied by a political cost. By 1997, Europe was a recurrent symbol of Conservative division, rather than an issue Major had permanently resolved.
Britain and Cold War change
Britain contributed to the end of the Cold War through diplomacy and alliance policy, but did not control the changes inside the Soviet Union or Eastern Europe. Thatcher supported NATO deterrence while developing a working relationship with Mikhail Gorbachev. Meetings, including her 1987 Moscow visit, enabled direct discussion and helped make Soviet reform appear a serious opportunity to Western governments.
Her support for negotiation was conditional. She wanted verified arms reductions and continued Western unity, rather than assuming that a new Soviet leader removed every security risk. The 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty was signed by the United States and Soviet Union, not Britain. British support and alliance diplomacy mattered, but the superpowers' negotiations and Gorbachev's policy choices were central. Thatcher's 1987 speaking notes connect encouragement of reform with insistence on Western strength.
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