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7 Oct, 7 tweets, 3 min read
Why was Margaret Thatcher so afraid of German reunification? Why did a lifelong anti-Communist turn to the Soviet Union for support? And what lessons might be learned for Brexit Britain? My latest for the @NewStatesman. newstatesman.com/politics/uk/20…
Margaret Thatcher on "the German national character".
Britain's tendency to view its relationship with Europe through the lens of the Second World War has a long and undistinguished history.
In a phone call, Thatcher told President Bush that Germany “was surrounded by countries, most of which it had attacked or occupied”. With Germany reunited, “only the Soviet Union could provide balance in the political equation”. Bush was not impressed.
Thatcher's hostility to German reunification damaged her in Washington, as well as in Bonn.
Even many on the Right were alarmed by Thatcher's response to reunification, deepening concerns among her party that would prove terminal in 1990.
As Thatcher reflected in her memoirs: “If there is one instance in which a foreign policy I pursued met with unambiguous failure, it was my policy on German reunification.” Thirty years on, it offers a cautionary tale for British diplomacy today. newstatesman.com/politics/uk/20…

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Robert Saunders Profile picture
8 Oct
I'm going to tweet out some of the documents on which this article draws, tracing Margaret Thatcher's response to German reunification & its aftermath. Thatcher was an expressive writer & annotator of documents, many of which are available online. [THREAD] newstatesman.com/politics/uk/20…
1. This one's from Sept 1989, when Thatcher met Gorbachev for talks on the situation in Eastern Europe. She asked for the recording to be switched off, so she could speak freely about Germany. NATO commitments to unification, she said, shd be "disregarded" margaretthatcher.org/document/112005 Image
2. Thatcher was not impressed by Francis Fukuyama's prediction of "the end of history" (or of "the Common Marketization of international relations"!). She annotated his work in detail, and warned that "there are always evils in the world to be opposed." margaretthatcher.org/document/211165 Image
Read 8 tweets
Robert Saunders Profile picture
8 Oct
We're delighted to announce the winners of the @MileEndInst's inaugural Undergraduate Research Prize. It's a pleasure to be able to showcase such outstanding student work, esp in such a difficult year for researchers. The winners have blogged about their work below. [Drumroll...]
In alphabetical order, our first prize-winner is EMMA DAVIES (@emmaxdaviess), on "Historicising Black Lives Matter: The Nigerian Women's War of 1929". Emma compares BLM with colonial protests in the British Empire and calls for new approaches to the past.
qmul.ac.uk/mei/news-and-o… Image
Continuing down the alphabet, our next prize winner is JOHANNES-MAXIMILIAN GLAHS, with a post on "Why we should forget about the UN to begin tackling climate change". "Climate Clubs", he argues, offer a more effective basis for action on climate change. qmul.ac.uk/mei/news-and-o… Image
Read 5 tweets
Robert Saunders Profile picture
20 Sep
Good piece, as ever, by @NickCohen4 on the collapse of meritocracy. Though I'd see it slightly differently: I think Cummings passionately believes that he is *constructing* a meritocracy, in a way that demonstrates the problems with that concept. [THREAD] theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
2. Cummings sees himself as a meritocrat. His blog drips with contempt for the calibre of civil servants, MPs & ministers. He rages against an out-dated "establishment", that shuts out mavericks & rewards low-wattage arts graduates, with no understanding of science or innovation.
3. The govt is stocked with people, like Cummings, who think that their own merits went unrewarded: ministers who were sacked; diplomats whose careers stalled; and lawyers who never made partner. They see themselves as victims of a rigged "establishment", not of "meritocracy".
Read 14 tweets
Robert Saunders Profile picture
7 Sep
All this goes back to the original sin of the Brexit negotiations: the refusal to be honest with the British public about the trade-offs involved. That has been bad for democracy, bad for British diplomacy and threatens very grave consequences for Northern Ireland. [1/4]
2. At the outset, the govt made three promises on Northern Ireland that were logically incompatible:
- no customs border between North & South;
- no customs border in the Irish Sea;
- no membership of the Single Market.
You can have any two of those, but you cannot have all three
3. The govt should have been honest about that. Instead, it first denied there was a problem ("technology" or "Gatt 24" would fix it), then lied to the public about what it had negotiated & sold it at an election as an "oven-ready deal". A year later, it wants to rip that up.
Read 4 tweets
Robert Saunders Profile picture
25 Jul
According to the @Telegraph "Boris Johnson has speeded up plans to curb the judiciary". We must not be fooled by claims that this is about restoring "the sovereignty of Parliament". It's about the power of Number 10 to sideline Parliament - & all other checks on its power. THREAD
2. The courts are to be punished for two key rulings: reversing the suspension of Parliament in 2019, & insisting that only Parlt could trigger Article 50. In neither case did the court rule on policy: instead, it restored the right of Parlt, rather than No. 10, to make decisions
3. Far from "supplanting Parliament", as ministers claimed, the judges in these cases were *defending* Parliament against an attempt to sweep it aside. What the courts were challenging was not the sovereignty of Parliament, but the right of Number 10 to shut Parliament down.
Read 15 tweets
Robert Saunders Profile picture
11 Jul
Last night, after my first trip to the pub in months, I dreamed I was interviewing Margaret Thatcher on primetime TV. Naturally, she was accompanied by the Norwegian army, and the interview took place in a school gym hall, in front of the climbing frame. [Cont...]
2. In the midst of a devastating set of questions, I absent-mindedly sat down, so Thatcher sat down too. They then had to find chairs for the Norwegian army & could only find those little plastic ones they use in reception."You won't beat communism sitting down", she said sternly
3. When the interview was over, Thatcher asked what advice I would give her. I replied: "Be courageous, but not for too long". I'm now going to spend all day wondering what in the world that means - and what they were putting in the drinks in that pub...
Read 4 tweets

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