"No. No. No": How Margaret Thatcher's response to Jacques Delors' proposals for European integration led to her downfall

UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's emphatic "No. No. No" in response to Jacques Delors' proposal for European integration was one of the most historic moments in UK-Europe politics. In the statement given in the House of Commons on October 30, 1990, following the 1990 European Council summit meeting in Rome, Thatcher said,

"The President of the Commission, Mr. Delors, said at a press conference the other day that he wanted the European Parliament to be the democratic body of the Community, he wanted the Commission to be the Executive and he wanted the Council of Ministers to be the Senate. No. No. No."

This iconic speech would ultimately lead to Thatcher's downfall, causing her to be ousted from the 1990 Conservative Party leadership election.

According to The Guardian, Thatcher's antagonistic relationship with Delors, the President of the European Commission, caused The Sun to infamously publish a front-page headline saying “Up Yours Delors” in November 1990, urging readers to adopt the slogan against France and protect the British pound.

Jacques Delors, a French socialist architect of the modern European Union, and the President of the European Commission from 1985 to 1995, played a key role in the euro's design. He also helped create the single market, which allowed the free movement of people, goods, and services within the bloc.

Jacques Delors passed away on December 27, 2023, at age 98. The BBC reported that he died in his sleep in his Paris home on Wednesday morning. His death comes three years after Brexit.

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Jacques Delors and Margaret Thatcher often clashed over their ideas of European integration

According to the BBC, Jacques Delors firmly believed in post-war European integration. Margaret Thatcher, the leader of the Conservative Party and then Prime Minster of the UK, vehemently opposed these views as she did not want to shift any power to Brussels, which housed the European Commission.

A power battle between Delors and Thatcher emerged, with the latter calling Delors' 1989 report advocating for economic and monetary union between Britain and Europe "unacceptable," as it would amount to the British Parliament losing control.

Kenneth Clarke, a member of Thatcher's cabinet, told BBC Radio 4,

"The truth was that Jacques Delors and Margaret Thatcher deeply disliked each other personally, they hated each other for personal and political reasons."

Jacques Delors was not the only one who opposed Thatcher's hostility towards European integration. Her foreign secretary, Geoffrey Howe, and chancellor Nigel Lawson, threatened to quit if she did not agree to let Britain join the European Exchange Rate mechanism.

Thatcher promptly sacked Geoffrey Howe as the foreign secretary and appointed him deputy Prime Minister. At the House of Commons meeting in 1990, Thatcher went against her cabinet's decision and outright refused Delors' proposal for European integration, saying "No. No. No."

According to The Guardian, following Thatcher's speech, Howe delivered a scathing resignation speech in the House of Commons criticizing Thatcher, drawing a comparison using a cricket metaphor,

"It is rather like sending your opening batsmen to the crease, only for them to find, the moment the first balls are bowled, that their bats have been broken before the game by the team captain."

He ended the speech with,

"The time has come for others to consider their own response to the tragic conflict of loyalties, with which I myself have wrestled for perhaps too long."

Being called out by her most loyal compatriot in public sounded the death knell for Thatcher's 11-year stint as Prime Minister. She was ousted from the election shortly after that.

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Who is Jacques Delors? Architect of modern EU dies at age 98

Born on July 20, 1925, in the working class 11th arrondissement of Paris, Jacques Delors had humble beginnings. He was the only child of Jeanne and Louis Delors. A devout Catholic, Delors started working in the Bank of France before joining the socialist party in 1974.

Jacques Delors became the President of the European Commission in January 1985, a position he held for ten years. He laid the groundwork for the single market during his tenure there, which came into effect on January 1, 1993.

He was also instrumental in the design of the euro, a single common currency to replace individual currencies. This came into practice through the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, which founded the EU.

Earning the moniker "Mr. Europe," Jacques Delors was vital to European integration. The EU, which currently stretches from Finland to Portugal and houses over five million people, was dubbed "the house that Jacques built" by a famous biography, NPR reported.

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Jacques Delors is survived by his daughter Martine Aubrey, who served as the First Secretary of the Socialist Party from 2008 to 2012.