The battle of Bruges: Margaret Thatcher, the foreign office and the unravelling of British European policy

ABSTRACT Drawing on newly released archival material, this article reassesses Margaret Thatcher’s 1988 Bruges speech, widely depicted to have instigated Britain's drift towards Brexit. It opens by giving an essential recap of the main contents of the speech. Next, the article explains why and how we use the address as a prism through which to see Thatcher's European policy-making in action. The third section tells how the speech was written to show how intra-government fault lines began to surface in its earliest incarnations. We then process trace to the two main battles publicly rehearsed at Bruges: over the Conservative Party's approach to European integration (fourth section); and, reinforcing this, over the desirability of an Anglo-American reading of British history in which ‘Europe’ occupied a subordinate place (fifth section). Our central claim is that the study of political speeches, including the speechwriting process, can be a compelling addition to our accounts of the ways in which politicians frame policy dilemmas, debate them behind the scenes and manage their political communication to achieved desired policy objectives, in this case opening up Britain's place in ‘Europe’ for domestic discussion. We therefore contribute to three overlapping domains of inquiry: Thatcher's foreign and European policy decision-making; the Conservative Party and European integration leading to Brexit; and finally, speeches as tools for policy-making and agenda setting.