Bruges speech

1988 speech by Margaret Thatcher

Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1987

The Bruges speech was given by British prime minister Margaret Thatcher to the College of Europe at the Belfry of Bruges, Belgium, on 20 September 1988. Thatcher was opposed to any moves to transition the European Economic Community (EEC) into a federal Europe that would take powers away from its members. She considered European Commission president Jacques Delors a campaigner for federalisation and clashed with him publicly. Earlier in 1988, Delors had reaffirmed his commitment for the EEC to take a greater role in establishing European economic, fiscal and social legislation, which Thatcher considered provocative. On 8 September, Delors spoke to Britain's Trades Union Congress, calling for their support.

Thatcher had been invited to speak to the College of Europe in Bruges and decided to make her text a response to Delors' speech of 8 September. Thatcher's speech recounted Britain's history within and close connection to Europe and called for the EEC to resist a move towards centralisation of power. She called for reforms to the Common Agricultural Policy and for the EEC to continue to support the work of NATO. One of the most famous and controversial passages was her remark that "we have not embarked on the business of throwing back the frontiers of state at home only to see a European superstate getting ready to exercise a new dominance from Brussels".

Despite its commitment that Britain would work within the EEC to reform it, the speech was perceived as anti-Europe. The speech exposed a divide in the Conservative Party between those favouring federalisation and the majority who opposed it. Thatcher's foreign secretary Geoffrey Howe was greatly affected by the speech; his later support, with Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson, for Britain to join the European Exchange Rate Mechanism eventually led to Thatcher's resignation. The Bruges Group, a British Eurosceptic think tank, was named after the speech. Some have described it as "setting the UK on the path to Brexit".

## Background

[edit]

European Commission president Jacques Delors (pictured in 1988)

The European Economic Community (EEC), a common market and customs union for Western European states, was formed by the Treaty of Rome in 1957. The United Kingdom joined the organisation in 1973; by 1986, it included most non-Communist European states. The 1987 Single European Act gave the Community's governing bodies (the European Commission, European Parliament and Council of Ministers) greater roles in managing policies on the environment, health, education and other areas.[1]

Margaret Thatcher, the prime minister of the United Kingdom, resented the power being granted to the Commission and its president Jacques Delors, who she considered a leading campaigner for a federal Europe. Thatcher and Delors became involved in several public clashes, which dismayed Thatcher's foreign secretary Geoffrey Howe, who was more sympathetic to Delors' policies.[2]

On 6 July 1988, Delors spoke to the European Parliament and predicted that "10 years hence, 80 per cent of our economic legislation, and perhaps even our fiscal and social legislation, will be of Community origin". Thatcher perceived this as a provocation, a deliberate crossing of the Rubicon away from national sovereignty and towards federation.[2] Delors made a speech to the Trades Union Congress (TUC) on 8 September, calling for their support for the Commission's attempts to strengthen the powers of unions. Thatcher had previously clashed with the trade unions during her successful campaign to strengthen the British economy.[3] Thatcher decided to use an upcoming speech to the College of Europe, an academic organisation based in Bruges, Belgium, to respond to Delors' speech to the TUC. The year marked a dramatic change in Thatcher's position on Europe from pragmatic acceptance to distinct opposition to further integration, which she would reflect in the speech.[3]

Much of Thatcher's speech was drafted by her foreign-policy adviser Charles Powell and Conservative peer Hugh Thomas, Baron Thomas of Swynnerton.[4][3] Drafts of the speech were sent to the Foreign Office for review. Howe noted that there were "some plain and fundamental errors" and did not like references to a United States of Europe. He did not object to it, although the final version of the speech contained some significant changes. Howe did praise one passage in the draft that remained unchanged in the final version: "let me say bluntly on behalf of Britain: we have not embarked on the business of throwing back the frontiers of state at home only to see a European superstate getting ready to exercise a new dominance from Brussels". This passage would become one of the most controversial of the speech.[2]

## Speech

[edit]

External videos

Speech to the College of Europe[5]

Belfry of Bruges (pictured in 2008)

[Film] (Speech) – via the Margaret Thatcher Foundation.

The speech was to be in a hall at the historic Belfry of Bruges on 20 September 1988.[2][5] Thatcher had planned to use an autocue but because of the venue's layout, with most of the audience sat to her sides, she chose to speak from her paper notes. She deviated slightly from the text but not in any politically meaningful manner.[5] A copy was sent in advance to Delors and, having read it, he refused to attend the event.[4] The Belgian prime minister, Wilfried Martens, was in the audience.[5]

Thatcher began her speech by noting that her last appearance before the College had been shortly after the Zeebrugge ferry disaster, in which Belgians had saved many British lives. Thatcher also praised the College's rector, Professor Jerzy Łukaszewski, and the institution's role in the EEC. She went on to reference Bruges' long history and the city's association with English literary figures such as Geoffrey Chaucer and William Caxton.[5] She thanked the College for having the courage to invite her to speak on the topic of Europe and noted that some federalists would regard it as "rather like inviting Genghis Khan to speak on the virtues of peaceful coexistence".[2]

Thatcher stated that she believed that the culture of Europe did not begin when the Treaty of Rome was signed but was instead the product of thousands of years of shared history.[2] She noted that Britain had long been associated with Europe and that its ancestors were Romans, Celts, Saxons and Danes. Thatcher stated that her "nation was—in that favourite Community word—'restructured' under the Norman and Angevin rule in the eleventh and twelfth centuries" and referred to the Glorious Revolution of 1688, where the Dutch William of Orange ascended the English throne.[5] Thatcher afterwards noted Britain's history as a home for those fleeing tyranny on Continental Europe and her later fights "to prevent Europe from falling under the dominance of a single power".[2][5] In a passage that had not been in the original draft seen by Howe she referred to the British First World War dead: "Only miles from here, in Belgium, lie the bodies of 120,000 British soldiers who died in the First World War. Had it not been for that willingness to fight and to die, Europe would have been united long before now—but not in liberty, not in justice".[2][5] She afterwards noted that Britain had supported the European resistance movements against Nazi Germany in the Second World War.[5] Thatcher stated that Britain's commitment to Europe remained, as seen in the 70,000 British Armed Forces service members deployed on the continent.[5] She urged the audience not to forget those parts of Europe under communist rule, stating, "we shall always look on Warsaw, Prague and Budapest as great European cities".[5][2] Thatcher said that European values had led the United States of America to become a "valiant defender of freedom".[5]

Thatcher then stated that "the European Community belongs to all its members. It must reflect the traditions and aspirations of all its members" and that Britain did not desire "some cosy, isolated existence on the fringes of the European Community" but to remain within it. To ensure this, she asked the EEC not to become "ossified by endless regulation" and that it must respect each nation's customs and traditions and not try to mould them into a single European identity. She argued that the EEC should not look to model itself upon the US and that it seemed to be moving towards greater centralisation of power at the same time that the Soviet Union was moving away from it (perestroika).[5]

Thatcher hailed the success of the February 1988 European Council meeting in cutting expenditure on storing and disposing of food surpluses generated by the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and called for continued reform of the CAP, which she described as "unwieldy, inefficient and grossly expensive". She suggested that by doing so, the agriculture budget could be redirected towards training and aid. Thatcher urged the EEC to learn the lessons of history that "central planning and detailed control do not work and that personal endeavour and initiative do" and to move towards free enterprise in a single market. She stated, "of course, we want to make it easier for goods to pass through frontiers. Of course, we must make it easier for people to travel throughout the Community[,]" but some frontier controls were essential for security purposes. Thatcher argued against protectionism and in favour of international aid to developing countries. Thatcher stressed the importance of NATO and the US to the defence of Europe and argued that the Western European Union should not be seen as an alternative to NATO.[5]

Thatcher concluded by arguing that Europe did not require any more treaties beyond the North Atlantic Treaty, the Brussels Treaty and the Treaty of Rome. Her closing remarks were: "Let Europe be a family of nations, understanding each other better, appreciating each other more, doing more together but relishing our national identity no less than our common European endeavour. Let us have a Europe which plays its full part in the wider world, which looks outward not inward, and which preserves that Atlantic community—that Europe on both sides of the Atlantic—which is our noblest inheritance and our greatest strength".[5]

The text of the speech was released to the media at 17:30 GMT by the Downing Street press office.[5] After finishing her speech, Thatcher left the event with her husband, Denis, and travelled to Brussels for an audience with King Baudouin. Afterwards, she had dinner with Prime Minister Martens and his cabinet members, during which a row erupted after Belgian foreign minister Leo Tindemans made a federalist comment.[4]

## Impact

[edit]

Thatcher's foreign secretary Geoffrey Howe

The speech was perceived as an attack on the "European project". However, Thatcher supported the Common Market and had intended the speech to be anti-federalist, not anti-Europe.[4] Delors admitted that "technically it was a good speech, well written, beautiful phrases. She was very direct, very comprehensible" but considered it to be an attack on the EEC.[2] Lord Thomas of Swynnerton was at heart a Europhile and was disappointed that the speech was perceived as being anti-Europe.[4] The speech was seen as a warning against expanding the remit of the EEC beyond the limits of the Treaty of Rome into the social policy of member states. Though it did not mention socialism by name, the speech was seen as implying that the EEC was turning into a socialist state.[3] The author Robin Harris considered the speech the most important of Thatcher's prime-ministerial career. He regarded it as marking British resistance to the Economic and Monetary Union and setting out an alternative model for European cooperation under a voluntary association of independent states.[6]

Though, in essence, a pro-European speech, it quickly became a symbol of hostility to Europe, behind which Eurosceptics rallied.[7][8] The address exposed a divide in the Conservative Party between the minority of European federalists and the majority who were opposed.[6] Former prime minister Edward Heath, who had handled the original negotiations on the British accession to the European Communities, broke the precedent against criticising a sitting Government while the Prime Minister is engaged in foreign negotiations by travelling to Brussels while Thatcher was there to attend the 1988 NATO summit to deliver a rebuttal personally.[9] The Bruges speech greatly affected Howe, who considered Thatcher's position to be at odds with his own, and on 4 May 1989 he met with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Nigel Lawson, who had been planning for the country to join the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM), an EEC economic stability measure, against Thatcher's wishes. Howe and Lawson continued to lobby Thatcher on the matter; however, Lawson resigned when Thatcher refused to sack her chief economic adviser Sir Alan Walters, who opposed British membership of the ERM. Britain eventually joined the ERM on 5 October, under Lawson's replacement as chancellor John Major.[2] The political decision ultimately led to Thatcher's resignation and replacement by Major, who came to prominence for his role in the ERM decision.[6][2][8] Thatcher became increasingly sceptical of the EEC after her resignation.[2]

After the Bruges speech, there was an increasing trend towards Euroscepticism in the Conservative Party.[4] This created difficulties during Major's negotiations to pass the Maastricht Treaty, the founding document of the European Union (EU), under which increased powers were granted to the European institutions.[8] An agreement was eventually reached, and Britain passed the treaty, though it retained an opt-out on the Social Chapter until this was given up by Labour prime minister Tony Blair in 1997.[3] Britain left the EU on 31 January 2020, after a nationwide referendum on the matter. The Bruges speech is sometimes described as "setting the UK on the path to Brexit" (Conservative peer Lord Willetts),[3] though some writers such as David Allen Green have stated that this was not the case and was instead "a call to battle" to reform the EEC.[7]

The Eurosceptic Bruges Group think tank was founded in 1990 and named after the speech.[7] The original drafts of the Bruges speech were released by the Margaret Thatcher Archive Trust in 2018 under the thirty-year rule. The drafts showed that the final speech had been considerably toned down. Direct references to Delors were removed, and those to the European Commission were replaced with "European community". The use of the term "Euro waffle" was also removed.[4]

## See also

[edit]

* "No. No. No."

## References

[edit]

1. ^ European Community at the Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 13 December 2020.
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Moore, Charles (28 September 2019). "Margaret Thatcher biography: How the Bruges speech was deemed a declaration of war that caused 'absolute horror' in Brussels". The Telegraph. Retrieved 13 December 2020.
3. ^ a b c d e f Willetts, David (31 August 2018). "How Thatcher's Bruges speech put Britain on the road to Brexit". Financial Times. Retrieved 13 December 2020.
4. ^ a b c d e f g Dixon, Hayley (21 July 2018). "Margaret Thatcher's famous Bruges speech was to have been much more critical before it was toned down". The Telegraph. Retrieved 13 December 2020.
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p "Speech to the College of Europe ('The Bruges Speech')". Margaret Thatcher Foundation. 20 September 1988. Retrieved 13 December 2020.
6. ^ a b c Tiersky, Ronald (2001). Euro-skepticism: A Reader. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 103\. ISBN 978-0-7425-1054-8.
7. ^ a b c Green, David Allen (25 September 2018). "Why Thatcher's Bruges speech was not a first step towards Brexit". Financial Times. Retrieved 13 December 2020.
8. ^ a b c Startin, Nicholas (2015). "Have we reached a tipping point? The mainstreaming of Euroscepticism in the UK". International Political Science Review. 36 (3): 314. doi:10.1177/0192512115574126. ISSN 0192-5121. JSTOR 24573394. S2CID 142792443.
9. ^ Campbell, John (2010). Pistols at Dawn: Two Hundred Years of Political Rivalry from Pitt and Fox to Blair and Brown. London: Vintage. p. 338\. ISBN 978-1-84595-091-0. OCLC 489636152.

## External links

[edit]

* Video of the Speech, Bruges Group

* v
* t
* e

Margaret Thatcher

* Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1979–1990)
* Leader of the Conservative Party (1975–1990)
* MP for Finchley (1959–1992)

Member of Parliament|

* Public Bodies (Admission to Meetings) Act (1960)
* Circular 10/70 (1970)
* Shadow Cabinet
* "Britain Awake" (1976)
* Vote of no confidence in the Callaghan ministry (1979)

Ideology|

* Thatcherism
* Conservatism
* Free market
* Union democracy

Premiership|

* Ministers
* wets and dries
* Cold War
* 1st term
* 2nd–3rd term

| 1st ministry
(1979–1983)|

* Budget (1979)
* Budget (1980)
* "The lady's not for turning" (1980)
* Budget (1981)
* Gang of 25
* Irish hunger strike (1981)
* Budget (1982)
* Falklands War (1982)
* "Rejoice"
* sinking of the ARA General Belgrano
* Diana Gould exchange
* "White flags over Port Stanley"
* Budget (1983)

|

2nd ministry
(1983–1987)|

* Budget (1984)
* Brighton hotel bombing (1984)
* GCHQ trade union ban (1984)
* CCSU case
* Miners' strike (1984–85)
* Budget (1985)
* Anglo-Irish Agreement (1985)
* Local Government Act (1985)
* rate-capping rebellion
* Westland affair (1986)
* Budget (1986)
* Budget (1987)

3rd ministry
(1987–1990)|

* Budget (1988)
* Broadcasting restrictions (1988)
* "Sermon on the Mound" (1988)
* Bruges speech (1988)
* Budget (1989)
* Community Charge (1989–90)
* Poll tax riots
* Budget (1990)
* Gulf War (1990)
* "No. No. No." (1990)
* Resignation Honours (1990)

Party elections|

* 1975
* 1989
* 1990

General elections|

* 1979
* 1983
* 1987

Books|

* The Downing Street Years (1993 autobiography)
* The Path to Power (1995 memoir)
* Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World (2003)

Family|

* Denis Thatcher (husband)
* baronetcy
* Mark Thatcher (son)
* Carol Thatcher (daughter)
* Alfred Roberts (father)
* "We have become a grandmother" (1989)

Cultural depictions|

| Film and
television|

* Anyone for Denis? (1982 TV play)
* Spitting Image (1984–1996 & 2020 TV series)
* The New Statesman (1987–1991 TV series)
* Thatcher: The Final Days (1991 film)
* The Falklands Play (2002 play)
* Jeffrey Archer: The Truth (2002 TV film)
* The Alan Clark Diaries (2004 TV series)
* Pinochet in Suburbia (2006 docudrama)
* The Long Walk to Finchley (2008 film)
* Margaret (2009 film)
* The Queen (2009 TV serial)
* The Iron Lady (2011 film)
* The Hunt for Tony Blair (2011 episode)
* In Search of La Che (2011 film)
* The Crown (2020 TV series)
* Reagan (2024 film)

|

Plays|

* Handbagged (2010, 2013)
* The Audience (2013)

Statues|

* London Guildhall (1998)
* Palace of Westminster (2007)
* Grantham (2022)

Paintings|

* Richard Stone portrait

Related|

* Blatcherism
* Death and funeral
* Honours
* Thatchergate

* ← James Callaghan
* John Major →

*  Category

* v
* t
* e

2016 UK European Union Membership referendum and Brexit

* Renegotiation
* Referendum results
* Invocation of Article 50
* Negotiations
* Withdrawal agreement
* Northern Ireland protocol
* Trade negotiation
* Trade and Cooperation Agreement
* Windsor Framework
* Timeline

Referendum question|

"Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?"

Referendum legislation|

* European Union Referendum Act 2015
* Gibraltar
* European Union Referendum (Date of Referendum etc.) Regulations 2016
* The European Union Referendum (Conduct) Regulations 2016

Background|

| Treaties|

* Rome
* 1972 Accession Treaty
* Single European Act
* Maastricht
* Amsterdam
* Nice
* European Constitution
* Lisbon
* UK opt-outs from EU legislation

|

Legislation|

* European Communities Act 1972
* Amendments: 1986
* 1993
* 1998
* 2002
* 2008
* 2011
* European Economic Area Act 1993

Proposed bills|

* European Union Bill 2004–05
* European Communities Act 1972 (Repeal) Bills
* European Union (Referendum) Bill 2013–14

Elections|

* 2014 European Parliament election
* 2015 general election

By-elections|

* 2014 Clacton
* 2014 Heywood and Middleton
* 2014 Rochester and Strood

Other|

* UK accession
* 1973 EC enlargement
* UK membership
* 1975 EC membership referendum
* UK rebate
* Bruges speech
* No. No. No.
* Black Wednesday
* EEA
* Maastricht Rebels
* The European Union: In or Out
* Bloomberg speech
* Russian interference
* Balance of Competences Review
* 2015–16 renegotiation
* Euroscepticism in the UK

Campaign|

* Issues
* Opinion polling
* Endorsements
* Project Fear
* Unlawful campaigning allegations
* Brexit: The Movie
* Pro-EU leaflet
* Breaking Point (UKIP poster)

Campaign
organisations|

| Remain|

* Britain Stronger in Europe (official campaign)
* Labour In for Britain

|

Leave|

* Vote Leave (official campaign)
* Vote Leave bus
* Leave.EU
* BeLeave
* Grassroots Out
* Labour Leave
* Campaign for an Independent Britain
* The Freedom Association
* Better Off Out
* Get Britain Out
* Bruges Group

Aftermath of
referendum|

| Political party
leadership elections|

* Conservative
* 2016
* 2019
* Scottish, February 2020
* Labour
* UKIP

|

Opposition to Brexit|

* Proposed second referendum
* People's Vote
* Petition to revoke Article 50
* Led By Donkeys
* Bollocks to Brexit

Elections|

* 2017 local
* 2017 general
* 2018 local
* 2019 local
* 2019 European Parliament
* Brexit Party
* 2019 general

By-elections|

* 2016 Witney
* 2016 Richmond Park
* 2016 Sleaford and North Hykeham
* 2017 Copeland
* 2017 Stoke-on-Trent Central
* 2019 Peterborough
* 2019 Brecon and Radnorshire

Other|

* International reactions
* March to Leave
* Brexit Alliance
* Blue Collar Conservativism
* Brexit Party
* Independent Alliance for Reform

Brexit process|

* Miller I case
* Invocation of Article 50
* Negotiations
* Brexit divorce bill
* 2017
* 2018
* 2019
* Withdrawal agreement
* Parliamentary votes
* No-deal Brexit
* Operation Yellowhammer
* Prorogation of Parliament
* Miller II / Cherry case
* Trade negotiation between the UK and the EU
* Fish for finance
* EU–UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA)

Impact of Brexit
and
potential effects|

| on Northern Ireland and
the Republic of Ireland|

* 2024 Northern Ireland Executive formation
* Brexit and the Irish border
* Northern Ireland Protocol
* proposed changes
* Irish Sea border
* Windsor Framework

|

Other|

* on Gibraltar
* on the EU
* Science and technology
* Economic effects
* EU–UK relations after Brexit

Brexit legislation|

| White papers|

* Brexit plan
* Repeal Bill plan
* Chequers plan
* Brexit withdrawal agreement plan

|

Enacted|

* Notification of Withdrawal Act 2017
* Withdrawal Act 2018 (Gibraltar)
* Nuclear Safeguards Act 2018
* Cooper–Letwin Act
* Benn Act
* Withdrawal Agreement Act 2020 (Gibraltar)
* Internal Market Act 2020
* Future Relationship Act 2020
* UK Withdrawal from the European Union (Continuity) (Scotland) Act 2020
* Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023

Proposed|

* Terms of Withdrawal from EU (Referendum) Bills
* UK Withdrawal from the European Union (Legal Continuity) (Scotland) Bill 2018
* European Union Withdrawal Agreement (Public Vote) Bill 2017–19

Related|

* Brexit 50p coin
* Change Britain
* Change UK
* Chaos with Ed Miliband
* European Research Group
* "Enemies of the People"
* Leave Means Leave
* Led By Donkeys
* More United
* Northern Future Forum
* The New European
* Open Britain
* Proposed second Scottish independence referendum
* Reform UK
* Rue du Brexit
* Terminology (Glossary)
* Tufton Street
* United Ireland
* Voting pencil conspiracy theory
* Retained EU law
* 2017 Diane Abbott–David Davis controversy

Media depictions|

* Remainiacs (2017)
* Postcards from the 48% (2018)
* Not Tonight (2018)
* Brexit: The Uncivil War (2019)
* @BorderIrish (2018–2020)

* Category

*[v]: View this template
*[t]: Discuss this template
*[e]: Edit this template