Foreign Affairs

Question 1

What was Thatcher’s stance on Europe increasingly becoming?

Answer 1

• More negative post Single European Act (1986).
• The SEA limited the influence of individual nation states which Thatcher and a growing number of Conservative MPs became worried about.

Question 2

What was Thatcher’s Bruges speech and it’s impact?

Answer 2

• She emphasised the EEC was a trade association and she was resolutely opposed to federalism and an ever closer political union, which Jacques Delors thought was the direction the EEC was heading.
• The speech angered other European leaders and shed doubt on Britains commitment in Europe.
• In Britain, Eurosceptics splintered off and formed the Bruges Group, to focus opposition against a federalist state.

Question 3

How did Europe cause party divisions under Thatcher?

Answer 3

• You could say the start of the splintered Tory party over Europe. People like Howe and Major thought she was backtracking from her previous stances.
• Eurosceptics like the Bruges group argued the federalists in Brussels were changing the notion of the EEC and supported Thatcher.

Question 4

What was Thatcher’s European stance post fall of communism?

Answer 4

• Avidly advocated for the inclusion of the Eastern European States to foster a broader, shallower union rather than a more centrifugal, deeper rooted political union in Western Europe.
• Believed this would weaken the power of the European Commission and reinforce the ending of communism.

Question 5

What was the Maastricht Treaty?

Answer 5

• 1992, the EEC became the EU and conditions were set for a single currency to come into being in 1999.
• Major’s diplomatic skills enabled him to establish good personal links with other European leaders and to secure opt-outs for Britain from the single currency and the Social Chapter.

Question 6

Who were the Maastricht Rebels?

Answer 6

• Rebel MPs who tried to block the ratification of the Treaty in July 1993. Major won the vote by threatening a vote of no confidence, which, if he had lost, would have exacerbated Conservative divisions and led to an inevitable defeat in the subsequent general election.
• This did, however, damage his authority and made him seem weak.
• The ‘bastards’ that rebelled were most likely Duncan Smith, Portillo and Redwood.

Question 7

What divisions arose from the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty?

Answer 7

• Conservative Eurosceptics continued to oppose Major on European issues.
• Outside parliament, the Anti-Federalist League, later UKIP, was set up in 1993 and the Referendum Party in 1994 prepared to fight the 1997 election in the basis of a referendum on Britain in Europe.

Question 8

How Britain intervene in the First Gulf War?

Answer 8

• After Saddam Hussein sent forces to conquer the oil rich state of Kuwait in 1990, In 1991 a US led coalition back by a UN resolution expelled Iraqi forces in a short military campaign.
• Although Iraq lost the war, Hussein remained leader which would later come back to haunt Britain.

Question 9

Developments in the Cold War in the late 80s/early 90s?

Answer 9

• In 1989 the Berlin Wall fell and the Warsaw Pact ended in 1991.
• The USSR was dissolved in December 1991.

Question 10

How did the end of the Cold War change the countries political mindset?

Answer 10

• Many were optimistic that the expanding EU and removal of threat in the East would set up new arrangements of collective security and the peaceful resolution of disputes.
• President H. W. Bush dubbed the situation the ‘new world order’.
• Despite this, some feared the end would spark new arenas of conflict like in the Balkans.

Question 11

How did John Major try to ameliorate the Balkans conflict in 1992?

Answer 11

• He hosted a joint EU and UN conference and a UN peacekeeping force was agreed to be put in place.
• The Vance-Owen plan set out the framework for a lasting settlement.
• At the time Major was widely praised.

Question 12

Why did the Balkans war continue after 1992?

Answer 12

• There was no concerted European pressure and America wee reluctant to intervene.
• The war carried on for 3 more years, with constant siege in Sarajevo and 100,000 people dying.
• British and European arbitration remained ineffectual until Srebrenica in 1995.

Question 13

What happened after Srebrenica?

Answer 13

• The US and NATO were forced to intervene. US strikes on Serb forces led to the Dayton Agreement in Ohio.
• A peace Treaty was signed in Paris in December 1995 guaranteeing Bosnian independence protected by a UN force with substantial international support.