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A thread of clips from the 1990-1997 period, when the Conservatives last tore themselves apart over Europe while in government. (1/x)
In 1997, @bbcnickrobinson looked back after an epic election defeat, pinpointing the downfall of Thatcher as the turning point. Jeffrey Archer comments that "John Major went on to win the next election [1992], and that's what I think they couldn't forgive him for."
After Major had won a majority on a manifesto commitment to ratify the Maastricht Treaty, the rebels, led by Bill Cash, promised to "scupper" it in parliament.
Anglo-French billionaire James Goldsmith stepped in to bankroll Eurosceptics including William Rees-Mogg (father of Jacob) and Bill Cash, and went on to set up the single-issue Referendum Party.
Goldsmith didn't like the British establishment, and was described by Archer as being "by nature a dictator".
Goldsmith recruited candidates including casino owner John Aspinall, who compared the European Union to Nazi Germany.
In total the Referendum Party stood candidates in 547 seats, but didn't run against prominent Eurosceptics, including Jeremy Corbyn, seen here speaking against the Maastricht Treaty in 1996.
Goldsmith was also a member of the European Parliament in France for the MPF party founded by Philippe de Villiers. Here Bill Cash tells them we must preserve national sovereignty and "only the vanquished accept defeat".
Major himself seemed not to grasp how committed the other members of the European Union were to the single currency. In 1995 he said a currency union of 15 was "a fatuous proposition in this century or for a very long time beyond it".
In the 1997 election campaign, Major said that a vote for Tony Blair was a vote to say "yes" to a federal Europe.
The end result was one of the biggest electoral defeats in British history. Alistair McAlpine commented that people would look back on the period as "a black hole - a time without leadership, without direction, a nothing".
