Editing Geoffrey Howe (section)

=== Relationship with Thatcher ===
Tensions began to emerge in 1982 during the [[Falklands War]] when Thatcher, on the advice of Harold Macmillan (who warned against including the Treasury), refused to appoint him to the [[war cabinet]].{{sfn|Vinen|2009|p=148}} During his first budget, Thatcher wrote to [[Adam Ridley]]: "The trouble with people like Geoffrey&nbsp;– lawyers&nbsp;– they are too timid."<ref>Ridley, "Interview with Sir Adam Ridley", in {{harvnb|Moore|2013|p=407}}.</ref> On the occasion of the general election victory of 1983, there were heated exchanges of views in No. 10 on her decision to move him to the Foreign Office. Howe was one of those who persuaded [[Michael Heseltine]] that on balance, it was probably better that he, rather than she, resign during the [[Westland affair]] in 1986. At the Scottish Party Conference in [[Perth, Scotland|Perth]] in 1987, Howe spelt out his position for the [[European single market]] and the proposed Delors Plan (Thatcher having accepted the [[Single European Act]] in 1986<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11598879|title=Thatcher and her tussles with Europe|date=8 April 2013|work=BBC News|access-date=11 March 2019|archive-date=26 March 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190326075038/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11598879|url-status=live}}</ref>). In the following year, Thatcher made her [[Bruges speech|speech at Bruges]] declining the offer to deepen the bureaucratic state towards a "[[Federalisation of the European Union|Federalist Superstate]]".

At the [[Intergovernmental Conference|Madrid inter-governmental conference]], the tensions were ratcheted higher as Thatcher emphatically renounced any advance in British policy over the European agenda for "[[European integration|ever closer union]]" of political and economic forces. Howe forced her to give conditions for entering the proposal for [[European Exchange Rate Mechanism|entry to the ERM]] in June 1989. Howe and Nigel Lawson threatened to resign, but she called his bluff by appointing John Major over his head. Howe resented having to give up the state residence of Chevening in Kent on being effectively demoted to Lord President of the Council. He deeply resented leaving the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, a job he had always coveted. When Lawson resigned, it looked like a natural reshuffle, but Howe was frozen out of the inner circle. When Howe attended a meeting with the Queen, he found that Britain had joined the ERM before he had been informed about it&nbsp;– the ERM had been Howe's policy. The pound sterling was thus pegged to the [[Deutsche Mark]] instead of the US dollar. The consequence was that Britain's currency was pummelled into devaluation by a much stronger German economy&nbsp;– the option to leave cost Britain billions in 1992. But at the [[Rome Summit]] in October 1990, Thatcher was said to have exclaimed, in a fit of pique, "no, no, no" to the [[Delors Plan]] and repeated the government's policy at Paris summit on 18–20 November.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/04/watch-margaret-thatcher-explain-why-the-euro-is-a-terrible-idea-in-1990/274768/|title=Watch Margaret Thatcher Explain Why the Euro Is a Terrible Idea in 1990|first=Jordan|last=Weissmann|date=8 April 2013|magazine=The Atlantic|access-date=11 March 2019|archive-date=29 September 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210929054123/https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/04/watch-margaret-thatcher-explain-why-the-euro-is-a-terrible-idea-in-1990/274768/|url-status=live}}</ref> She also repeated [[No. No. No. (Margaret Thatcher)|the "no, no, no" message]] in the House of Commons on her return to Westminster. Howe had told [[Brian Walden]] (a former Labour MP) on ITV's ''[[Weekend World]]'' that the "government did not oppose the principle of a single currency", which was factually accurate – as its policy was that the "hard ECU" could evolve into a single currency, but that a single currency should not be imposed – but contrary to Thatcher's emerging view.