History: Did the Iron Lady crush UK euro-enthusiasm?

She was elected Britain's first woman Prime Minister in May 1979. In more than 11 years in power, Margaret Thatcher changed her country's relationship with Europe. A month after she was elected, the first direct elections to the EP took place. The only MEP to have been a member ever since was optimistic. I understood it all. Although she was very conservative, it was something which was new and it was a signal for all of Europe that ladies can become prime ministers or chancellors, as we have now in Germany with Angela Merkel. Mrs Thatcher was the first head of a government holding the Council Presidency to report to MEPs on a summit. She cited the problems of the Common Agricultural Policy, but her message was positive. I believe that the Community can and will rise to the occasion. For however diverse our national histories, we all know that our future lies in working together. It was in 1984 at the EU summit at Fontainebleau, and not for the first time, that she demanded a rebate for Britain, explaining that the CAP meant Britain's contributions exceeded its receipts. We are not asking for a penny piece of Community money for Britain. What we are asking is for a very large amount of our own money back. Her close friends say Lady Thatcher was suspicious about Europe's direction. Although supporting the single market, she negotiated away Britain's veto to get it and got a minister, Lynda Chalker, to sign it. She saw the Single European Act as a chance to break down boundaries in Europe, so that people could trade more easily and a lot of needless obstructions could be removed. That was her ambition. I don't think she realised until later what the political implications of this might be. When she next addressed the European Parliament in December 1986, she was interrupted by Northern Ireland MEP Ian Paisley, angry at the Anglo-Irish Agreement. It was not his protest that stopped her, but the vain attempts of a small usher to snatch a poster from his hand, something she couldn't see, but it reduced the Hemicycle to hysterics. She could cope with somebody shouting at her, standing in front of her. She could not cope with people behind her laughing at her. They were in fact laughing at Ian Paisley, but that's when her speech was stopped. Mrs Thatcher's attitude to Europe was made clear in her speech to the College of Europe in Bruges in September 1988. We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain only to see them reimposed at a European level with a European superstate exercising a new dominance from Brussels. Two years later, her hostility to Europe and unpopular domestic policies led to ministers' resignations and leadership challenges and reluctantly she stepped down. An award-winning film of her life shows her continuing influence on her party and the UK media. Her name has passed into legend, but her views remain entrenched in British political life. EuroparlTV video ID: ca8d3f1a-6428-48ae-bf67-a01b013204c1