Margaret Thatcher was an incredibly polarising figure, but everyone should be able to agree that she was absolutely spot on about why the Euro would be such a disaster.



As Peter Osborne argued in the Telegraph In 2010, Thatcher’s two autobiographies The Downing Street Years (1993) and The Path To Power (1995) discussed the tactics she would use to argue against the EMU (Economic and Monetary Union), which she wanted no part of.

Basically, she outlined the problems with the euro perfectly, that Germany would chafe at the inevitable need for greater inflation, and that the poorer countries would inevitably be uncompetitive and need bailouts that would not easily be forthcoming.

This paragraph is from The Path To Power, where she discusses conversations with John Major (her successor) about negotiating with the rest of Europe. She just totally nails the inflation and competitiveness angles.

The following is from Downing Street Years, and again concerns her discussions with John Major.

She couldn’t have spelled it out more clearly.

It’s one thing to be kind of generically anti-Euro, which a lot of people in England have been.

It’s another thing to absolutely nail why the euro euro would be such a disaster.

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