210 Quotes filtered by Policy
I was turned out because I said to Europe no, no, no. That no, no , no has now turned into yes, yes. Two yes's not three because he got the Social Chapter out and he's reserved his position on the single currency.
Margaret Thatcher 1994
Category: Europe & Britain, Europe - Maastricht Treaty
In my day that would have required the occasional use of the handbag. Now it will be a cricket bat. But that's a good thing because it will be harder.
Margaret Thatcher 1993
On John Major's Maastricht negotiations
Category: Europe - Maastricht Treaty
We weren't getting a fair deal on the budget and I wasn't going to have it. There's a great strand of equity and fairness in the British people - this is our characteristic. There's not a strand of equity and fairness in Europe - they're out to get as much as they can. That's one of those enormous differences. So I tackled it on that basis.
Margaret Thatcher 1993
Category: Europe & Britain
I think our support for the EEC has been very half-hearted. You really cannot join any group of nations and spend all your time criticizing it. The EEC is free Europe getting together. Had we had some vision like that after the First World War, we might never had the Second. My son does not have to go and fight as his father had to fight. Surely that is the most valuable thing of all, the reason for keeping Europe together.
Margaret Thatcher 15/04/1979
Category: Europe & Britain
The fact that seasoned politicians can say such ridiculous things - and get away with it - illustrates the degree to which the new dogma... has swept through the left-of-centre governing classes.
Margaret Thatcher 24/03/2002
Category: Environment
My first guiding principle is this: willing and active co-operation between independent sovereign states. Europe will be stronger precisely because it has France as France, Spain as Spain, Britain as Britain, each with its own customs, traditions and identity. It would be folly to try to fit them into some sort of identikit European personality.
Margaret Thatcher 09/1988
Speech tot he College of Europe in Bruges
Category: European Integration
I can cope with nine of them, so they ought to be able to stand one of me. They could end the tiresomeness and stubbornness by giving me what I want.
Margaret Thatcher 10/04/1984
On her 9 European colleagues
Category: Europe & Britain
The United States is contributing massively to the defence of Europe and we should be very grateful.
Margaret Thatcher 27/10/1983
Category: Europe & America, Defence
I have the money and they won't get their hands on it.
Margaret Thatcher 13/08/1979
To Sir Nicholas Henderson, on the EEC budget
Category: Europe & Britain
When you take into public ownership a profitable industry the profits soon disappear. The goose that laid the golden eggs goes broody. State geese are not great layers.
Margaret Thatcher 1976
Category: Nationalisation
I can defend it clearly, explicitly at any time, in any place and to any person.
Margaret Thatcher 08/06/1991
Category: Community Charge/Poll Tax
If in the 1930s nuclear weapons had been invented and the Allies had been faced by Nazi SS20s and Backfire Bombers, would it then have been morally right to have handed Hitler control of one of the most terrible weapons man has ever made? Would not that have been the one way to ensure that the thousand year Reich became exactly that? Would not unilateralism have given to Hitler the world domination he sought?
Margaret Thatcher 1983
Category: Nuclear Disarmament
Every Conservative desires peace. The threat to peace comes from Communism which has powerful forces ready to attack anywhere. Communism waits for weakness, it leaves strength alone. Britain must therefore be strong, strong in her arms, strong in her faith, strong in her own way of life.
Margaret Thatcher 1950
Dartford election leaflet, 1950
Both the President and Mr Gorbachev have said that they want to see a world without nuclear weapons. I cannot see a world without nuclear weapons. Let me be practical about it. The knowledge is there to make them. So do not go too hard for that pie in the sky because, while everyone would like to see it, I do not believe it is going to come about.
Margaret Thatcher 28/03/1986
Category: Nuclear Disarmament
I do not understand the unilateralists. If they hated nuclear weapons as much as I do they would want them down in the world as a whole. I am the true disarmer, I keep peace and freedom and justice with it.
Margaret Thatcher 17/01/1983
Category: Nuclear Disarmament
A bully has no respect for a weakling and the way to stop a bully is not to be weak. The way to stop a bully from ever being a bully is to say: "I'm as strong as you. Anything you do to me, I can do to you." We are going for nuclear and conventional disarmament but we're going about it in the right way.
Margaret Thatcher 10/01/1982
Category: Defence, Nuclear Disarmament
We are very fortunate to have someone else's weapons stationed on our soil, to fight those targeted on us.
Margaret Thatcher 16/02/1981
