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Thatcher Freed Market Forces, and Europe Is Still Adjusting Thatcher Fiscal Policies Are Still a Tough Sell for Europe
(about 5 hours later)
As word of Margaret Thatcher’s death spread on Monday, her successor several times removed, Prime Minister David Cameron, cut short a trip to Spain intended to address what had been among her greatest concerns — British suspicions about deeper ties with Europe. LONDON — As word of Margaret Thatcher’s death spread on Monday, it seemed fitting that Prime Minister David Cameron was engaged in what had been billed as a European tour to bring the Continent around to her conservative way of thinking, particularly about Britain’s relationship with Europe.
But Mrs. Thatcher’s imprint on the politics and economics of her nation, Europe and the world extended well beyond her proud nationalism. The approach she imposed on a divided and reluctant Britain starting with her election as prime minister in 1979 continue to echo even at her death. It was built on a faith in market forces, a willingness to impose short-term austerity in the service of long-term prosperity and skepticism or even hostility to the fiscal and social costs of the welfare state cherished by much of Europe. Mrs. Thatcher, many Britons said, transformed their country, opening the way for sweeping privatization and deregulation, legitimizing wealth and unleashing acquisitive, entrepreneurial passions among her compatriots. But Thatcherism, as it came to be known, never found fertile soil on the Continent, not even after the financial crisis and euro zone woes that have plunged much of Europe into an economic gloom at least as dark as that of 1970s Britain.
Along with President Ronald Reagan, with whom she helped define modern conservatism, Mrs. Thatcher developed a strain of capitalism that became dominant around the world with the fall of communism. But she also helped unleash market forces and unravel social compacts in ways that many societies have yet to come to grips with. Even on the day of her death, leaders and citizens from Cyprus to Portugal to Washington were enmeshed in emotional debates over the policies that defined her legacy. Those cross currents continue to play out in her own country, a laboratory even now for austerity policies. Yet her doubts about a “European superstate” and the common currency ring true today, nearly a quarter of a century after she resigned. She correctly predicted in her memoirs that Germany’s historical fears about inflation would lead to slow-growth policies that would deepen the problems of the euro zone’s weaker, less efficient economies, which could no longer rely on devaluation to solve their problems.
Mrs. Thatcher, 87, as many of the eulogies pouring in to her said, transformed Britain, battling for a smaller role for the state in the economy, opening the way for sweeping privatization and deregulation, legitimizing wealth, and unleashing acquisitive, entrepreneurial passions among her compatriots that still seem to make continental Europeans uncomfortable. Mrs. Thatcher’s prescription for Britain in the 1980s — faith in market forces, willingness to impose short-term austerity in the service of long-term prosperity, and skepticism or even hostility to the fiscal and social costs of the welfare state — prefigured some of the policies Germany and European regulators are still recommending, wrongly in the view of many economists, for the struggling Southern European countries.
She also passionately defended her view of Britain as a significant power in the world, with interests and influences of her own that were independent of the 27-nation European Union. Just as Mrs. Thatcher once famously declared ‘'No! No! No!'’ in Parliament to a French-led push for closer European integration, and looked to Britain’s ‘'special relationship'’ with the United States as a way of leveraging Britain’s own weight in international affairs, Mr. Cameron, publicly espousing her legacy, has trodden a broadly similar path. But few of those nations, even in the hard-hit southern tier, have shown the political strength or will to face down the entrenched forces — unions, state-owned enterprises, encrusted political elites — that Mrs. Thatcher did, and the crisis drags on without resolution.
He has balked at a European push for legally mandated restrictions bankers’ bonuses and the imposition of stiffer taxes on financial trading, anathema to Mr. Cameron’s Conservatives and to the financial industry that is centered in the City of London, and serves as the one of the principal founts of Britain’s now-beleaguered prosperity. It is an indelible part of the Thatcher legacy that her success in remaking Britain never drew the Continent closer to its cantankerous, offshore cousins. Nonetheless, she remains the revered icon of British conservatism, a yardstick for true believers in the free market and the ability of capitalism to spread prosperity in a way that socialist redistribution never could.
More broadly, he has stood four-square against the French and German resolve to create a stronger federal Europe, with more intrusive powers to regulate national economies and bolster the Euro currency, and outlined a future in which Britain would fashion a future for itself that would revert to an earlier vision of Europe as a trading bloc, not a one-size-fits-all club in which national sovereignties would be subsumed. Within moments of the announcement of Mrs. Thatcher’s death at age 87, Queen Elizabeth II and Mr. Cameron offered tributes to what he called “a great leader, a great prime minister, a great Briton.” Mr. Cameron said Parliament would be recalled on Wednesday for a special session in her honor.
As Mr. Cameron broke off his European journey to return to London on Monday to oversee preparations for Mrs. Thatcher’s funeral, 10 Downing Street announced that the funeral, to take place next week, would include a service with full military honors, with the service itself at St. Paul’s Cathedral. Officials gave no other details, beyond saying that the arrangements would be similar to those made after the death in a Paris car crash in 1997 of Diana, Princess of Wales, whose coffin was carried through crowds in London on a horse-drawn caisson with an honor guard of military outriders. The prime minister’s office said that, in line with her family’s wishes, Mrs. Thatcher would not be accorded a full state funeral but would nonetheless be buried with military honors. That ceremony is to take place on a yet-to-be-announced day next week, at St. Paul’s Cathedral. Officials gave no other details, beyond saying that the arrangements would be similar to those made after the death in a Paris car crash in 1997 of Diana, Princess of Wales, whose coffin was carried through crowds in London on a horse-drawn caisson.
The last prime minister to be accorded similar honors was Winston Churchill in 1965, a similarity that spoke for Britain’s sense of Mrs. Thatcher as a historical figure, and as many of her admirers said on Monday, as perhaps the country’s greatest peacetime leader. The last prime minister to be accorded similar honors was Winston Churchill in 1965, a comparison that spoke for Britain’s sense of Mrs. Thatcher as a historical figure, and, as many of her admirers said on Monday, as perhaps the country’s greatest peacetime leader.
But the commemorations were accompanied, too, by more acerbic, even vitriolic, remembrances from those, particularly on the political left, who saw her as a destructive figure, who had ruptured the economic and social fabric of post-war Britain and left a country that was more divided, more selfish, and, for the have-nots, more resentful than at any time in its recent history. Mrs. Thatcher was Britain’s first female prime minister, serving for 11 years, beginning in 1979. Many Britons remembered her as a dominant yet divisive figure, whose impact on British life and society was enduring, if deeply contentious at the time, and whose pervasive influence on political thinking about the role of the state in free societies spread far beyond Britain’s shores.
Across the world, as in Europe, the response to Mrs. Thatcher’s death appeared to oscillate between similar poles. Many foreign leaders and commentators spoke about her as President Barack Obama did, as ‘'one of the great champions of freedom and liberty, and as an example to women that ‘'there is no glass ceiling that can’t be shattered.'’ However, there were others, particularly on the political left, who spoke with bitterness of the political vogue that spread across the globe in the name of Thatcherism, and which saw the rollback of socialism and the dismantling of command economies in virtually every continent, in favor of an approach that saw the free market as a vehicle to generate wealth and spread prosperity in a way that socialist redistribution never could. Along with President Ronald Reagan, with whom she helped define modern conservatism, Mrs. Thatcher propagated a faith in the redemptive power of capitalism that became dominant around the world, and hastened the fall of Communism. But she also helped to unleash market forces, and unravel social compacts, in ways that many societies have yet to to resolve.
But, where that legacy had its strongest impact, in Europe, it has not brought Britain close to its continental cousins. Since Mrs. Thatcher’s retirement from active politics in 1990, toppled by her own party elite, Britain has drifted further from Europe. It is not a member of key vehicles of integration — the euro currency, the Schengen accord on free travel across the continent’s internal frontiers. Indeed, bowing to the powerful euroskeptic currents in his own party, Mr. Cameron has promised a referendum on continued British membership in the E.U. Even on the day of her death, political leaders, commentators and ordinary citizens from Cyprus to Greece and Portugal, and in the United States, were enmeshed in often angry debates over the policies that defined her legacy. Those crosscurrents continue to play out in her own country, a laboratory under Mr. Cameron for harsh austerity policies.
So if there was a symbol of the fruits of the Thatcher legacy on Monday it was that of a British prime minister abandoning an overture to Europe to return home to mourn at a shrine to euroskepticism whose influence still tugs at many ideological passions. In addition to the changes she wrought at home, Mrs. Thatcher passionately defended her view of Britain as a significant power in the world, with interests and influences of her own that were independent of the 27-nation European Union. Just as she once famously declared “No! No! No!” in Parliament in response to a French-led push for closer European integration, she looked to Britain’s “special relationship” with the United States, not to Europe, as a way of leveraging Britain’s weight in international affairs, a view also strongly held by Mr. Cameron.
Many Britons remembered Mrs. Thatcher as a dominant, divisive and yet revered figure, whose impact on British life and society was enduring and contentious, and whose pervasive influence on political thinking about the role of the state in free societies spread far beyond Britain’s shores. Mrs. Thatcher did not simply lead Britain, Mr. Cameron said as he returned home, ‘'she saved our country.'’ Since she retired from politics in 1990, toppled by her own party elite, Britain has hewed to her skepticism about Europe, if anything drifting even further from the Continent. It is not a subscriber to some of main vehicles of integration — the euro currency, and the Schengen accord on free travel across the continent’s internal frontiers. Bowing to powerful Thatcherite euroskeptic forces in his party, Mr. Cameron has promised a referendum on continued British membership in the European Union by 2017.
‘'She was the patriot prime minister,'’ Mr. Cameron, recalling her role in shaping Britain’s relationship with the European Union. He said Parliament would be recalled on Wednesday for a special session in her honor. He has also balked at a European push for restrictions on bankers’ bonuses and opposed the imposition of stiffer Europe-wide taxes on financial trading. Those measures are anathema to Mr. Cameron’s Conservatives and to the financial industry that is centered in the City of London, which has served as a fount of Britain’s now-beleaguered prosperity.
News of her death emerged when her spokesman, Tim Bell, said in a statement: ‘'It is with great sadness that Mark and Carol Thatcher announced that their mother, Baroness Thatcher, died peacefully following a stroke this morning.'’ If there was a symbol on Monday of the Thatcher legacy, it was that of a British prime minister abandoning an overture to Europe to return home to mourn at a shrine to euroskepticism whose influence still tugs at many ideological passions.
Mrs. Thatcher, who was Britain’s first female prime minister, had been in poor health for months. She served as prime minister for 11 years, beginning in 1979. She was known as the Iron Lady, a stern Conservative who transformed Britain’s way of thinking about its economic and political life, broke union power and opened the way to far greater private ownership. Mr. Cameron spoke for most Conservatives when he said Monday that Mrs. Thatcher had not simply led Britain, “she saved our country.”
Within moments of the announcement of Mrs. Thatcher’s death, Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Cameron offered tributes to what Mr. Cameron called ‘'a great leader, a great prime minister, a great Briton.'’ But the commemorations were accompanied by more acerbic, even vitriolic, remembrances from those who saw her as a destructive figure who had ruptured the economic and social fabric of postwar Britain and left a country that was more divided, more selfish and, for the have-nots, more resentful than at any time in its recent history.
Mr. Cameron’s office said that, in line with her family’s wishes, Mrs. Thatcher would not be accorded a full state funeral but would nonetheless be buried with full military honors. Across the world, the response to Mrs. Thatcher’s death appeared to oscillate between similar poles. Many foreign leaders and commentators spoke about her as President Obama did, as “one of the great champions of freedom and liberty,” and as an example to women that “there is no glass ceiling that can’t be shattered.”
An assessment in the conservative Daily Telegraph said, ‘'She will go down in history not only as Britain’s first female prime minister, but as the woman who transformed Britain’s economy in addition to being a formidable rival on the international stage.'’ However, there were others, particularly on the political left, who spoke with bitterness of the vogue that spread across the globe in the name of Thatcherism and, they said, consigned millions without recourse to the rewards of free enterprise to lives of unrelieved poverty.
‘'Lady Thatcher was the only British prime minister to leave behind a set of ideas about the role of the state which other leaders and nations strove to copy and apply,'’ it said. Indeed, one of the most notable features of the political reaction came in the magnanimity and praise that characterized the comments of many of her old political foes.
Speaking to the BBC, Henry A. Kissinger, the former United States Secretary of State, said Mrs. Thatcher was a ‘'great leader'’ and a ‘'good friend of the United States.'’ She was known particularly for her close working relationship alliance with President Reagan, with whom she shared a profound ideological rejection of cold war communism.
But she also won the respect of some interlocutors in Moscow, notably Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, who described her on Monday as ‘'a politician whose word carried great weight.'’
‘'Our first meeting in 1984 marked the beginning of a relationship that was at times difficult, not always smooth, but was treated seriously and responsibly by both sides,'’ Mr. Gorbachev, 82, said, according to Reuters. ‘'We gradually developed personal relations that became increasingly friendly,'’ he said. ‘'In the end, we were able to achieve mutual understanding, and this contributed to a change in the atmosphere between our country and the West and to the end of the Cold War.'’
But even in death, the ideological divisiveness of her legacy in office was also evident in reactions to the news of her death. Paul Kenny, a labor union leader, said Mrs. Thatcher would be ‘'remembered by many for the destructive and divisive policies she reigned over.'’