Margaret Thatcher's anti-Europe speech

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 28 October 2019

⏱️ 9 minutes

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Summary

The British Prime Minister started expressing doubts about the European Union during a speech in the Belgian city of Bruges in 1988. The now famous "Bruges speech" is seen by many as the spark which ignited the anti-European movement within Britain's Conservative party. Susan Hulme has been speaking to Sir Stephen Wall who wrote an early version of the speech and to David McWilliams who was a student in the audience at the College of Europe when Mrs Thatcher spoke.

(Photo: Margaret Thatcher giving her "Bruges speech" at the College of Europe in 1988. Credit: Press Association/Fiona Hanson)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless
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0:24.9	searching and a lot more watching listen on BBC sounds.
0:30.9	Hello one Hello and welcome to this witness history podcast with me Susan Hume.
0:39.0	Today we're going back to 1988 and the spark which ignited the anti-European
0:44.8	Union movement in the United Kingdom's Conservative Party, what some see as the
0:50.0	first step on the road to the UK leaving the block. It was in September 1988
0:56.1	that the Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, known as the Iron Lady, arrived in the
1:01.0	Belgian city of Bruges at the heart of Europe, armed with a joke.
1:06.0	Mr Chairman, you have invited me to speak on the subject of Britain and Europe.
1:11.0	Perhaps I should congratulate you on your courage.
1:16.6	If you believe some of the things said and written about my views on Europe, it must seem rather
1:21.8	like inviting Genghis Khan to speak on the virtues of peaceful coexistence.
1:27.0	Margaret Thatcher's opening Salvo in what came to be known as her brogue speech and a rallying call for Eurosceptics in her own Conservative
1:35.3	Party. A young Irish economist David McWilliams was a student at the College of Europe then and in
1:42.2	the audience for the speech.
1:44.0	She came in, she had the hairdo, she had the handbag and she had this incredibly bright blue suit
	...

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