Matthew Lynn Matthew Lynn

Thatcher was completely right about the Euro

Margaret Thatcher (photo: Getty)

It was a ‘rush of blood to the head’. Its central bank would prove to be hopelessly ineffective. And cultural differences would remain too deeply ingrained for an internal market to ever work as it should. We learned this week from papers released in Dublin that Mrs Thatcher was completely damning about the idea of a single currency for the European Union. Looked at with the benefit of 30 years of hindsight, however, it is clear that the most remarkable point about her views is not just how intransigent she was but that she was completely right. The Euro has been a comprehensive failure, just as she said it would be.

Rewind three decades to the fading months of the Thatcher premiership and she was facing what turned out to be terminal trouble over her views on Europe.

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