MOSCOW (Sputnik) – In 1985, then-Chancellor Nigel Lawson told Thatcher that both the Bank of England and senior officials in the Treasury agreed that joining the ERM would strengthen the markets, the UK National Archives released on Thursday showed.
Thatcher stood up against Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe and Trade and Industry Secretary Leon Brittan, among others who sided with Lawson, and insisted that there were not enough arguments in favor of joining.
Inevitable trawl of press archives: @_peterriddell said May was "rather in the mould of the young Margaret Thatcher" in column 16 June 1999
— Matthew Purvis (@HLLibResearch) 11 July 2016
Mrs Thatcher was eventually persuaded to sign up to the ERM in 1990 by Mr Lawson's successor as chancellor John Major who — as prime minister two years later — presided as the UK humiliating crashed out on Black Wednesday.
