“Those who want the country to have a strong and sure defence can't rely on the Labour Party, the SDP or the Liberals. They can rely on us. By the end of this century it is predicted that several more countries will have acquired nuclear weapons. Labour wants Britain to give them up. At the very time when any sensible person would be renewing his insurance cover, Labour wants to cancel Britain's policy altogether. Moreover, they want to get rid of American bases from Britain and all nuclear weapons from British soil. Does anyone who has witnessed Mr. Gorbachev's performance thinks that he respects weakness? No. Mr. President, it is recognition of the West's strength and cohesion that has brought the Soviet Union back to the negotiating table. Our wish is to see substantial reductions in nuclear weapons, provided they are balanced and verifiable. I know that will be President Reagan's objective at his meeting with Mr Gorbachev, and he has our full support and good wishes as he goes to Geneva. The West could not have a better or a braver champion.”

— Margaret Thatcher

Speech to Conservative Party Conference (11 October 1985) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/106145
Second term as Prime Minister

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Margaret Thatcher 348

British stateswoman and politician 1925–2013

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“In a decision of the utmost gravity, Labour voted to give up Britain's independent nuclear deterrent unilaterally. Labour's defence policy—though "defence" is scarcely the word—is an absolute break with the defence policy of every British Government since the Second World War. Let there be no doubt about the gravity of that decision. You cannot be a loyal member of NATO while disavowing its fundamental strategy. A Labour Britain would be a neutralist Britain. It would be the greatest gain for the Soviet Union in forty years. And they would have got it without firing a shot.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Conservative Party Conference (10 October 1986) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=106498
Second term as Prime Minister

“Nuclear weapons are obsolete in an era of asymmetric warfare and cyber warfare and have no placed in a European defence policy for the 21st century. Britain and France have ignored their obligations under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons for far too long.”

Molly Scott Cato (1963) British economist and Member of the European Parliament

Quoted in CornwallLive. Cornwall and Devon European MP Molly Scott Cato arrested after breaking into US air base in Belgium https://www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-news/cornwall-devon-european-mp-molly-2564421 (20 February 2019)
2019

“No-one in their senses wants nuclear weapons for their own sake, but equally, no responsible prime minister could take the colossal gamble of giving up our nuclear defences while our greatest potential enemy kept their's. Policies which would throw out all American nuclear bases…would wreck NATO and leave us totally isolated from our friends in the United States, and friends they are. No nation in history has ever shouldered a greater burden nor shouldered it more willingly nor more generously than the United States. This Party is pro-American. And we must constantly remind people what the defence policy of the [Labour] Party would mean. Their idea that by giving up our nuclear deterrent, we could somehow escape the result of a nuclear war elsewhere is nonsense, and it is a delusion to assume that conventional weapons are sufficient defence against nuclear attack. And do not let anyone slip into the habit of thinking that conventional war in Europe is some kind of comfortable option. With a huge array of modern weapons held by the Soviet Union, including chemical weapons in large quantities, it would be a cruel and terrible conflict. The truth is that possession of the nuclear deterrent has prevented not only nuclear war but also conventional war and to us, peace is precious beyond price. We are the true peace party.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Speech to Conservative Party Conference (12 October 1984) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/105763
Second term as Prime Minister

“The labourers are still more unfortunate in being descended from bondsmen and serfs. Personal slavery or villanage formerly existed in Britain, and all the living labourers still suffer from the bondage of their ancestors.”

Thomas Hodgskin (1787–1869) British writer

Source: Labour Defended against the Claims of Capital (1825), p. 22

“When Britain leaves the European Union, free movement of labour and people will then come to an end.”

John McDonnell (1951) British politician (born 1951)

Source: EU referendum result must be respected, says John McDonnell https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36680463 BBC News (1 July 2016)

“I agreed with the prevailing opinion in the Labour Party about nuclear weapons; I went on ban-the-bomb marches in the 1960s and I have not changed my mind about nuclear deterrence since. But I found it hard to accept the Labour Party’s policy that required the exclusion of nuclear-powered ships. Given that nuclear energy exists it is the intention behind its use that matters. The weapons are made to destroy and we have to learn to live without them. The rest may be useful if properly managed. The management is an environmental issue and the inevitable exclusion of nuclear-powered vessels was not an appropriate basis for our foreign policy.”

David Lange (1942–2005) New Zealand politician and 32nd Prime Minister of New Zealand

Debunking the view of the left wing of the 1980s New Zealand Labour Party that the Lange Government's nuclear weapons ban should also extend to nuclear propulsion.
Source: David Lange, My Life (2005).

“NATO's nuclear strategy is an essential part of that balance [between East and West]. To threaten to upset it by refusing to let America base any of her nuclear weapons in Britain would make war more likely, not less likely.”

Denis Healey (1917–2015) British Labour Party politician and Life peer

The Guardian (14 August 1981).
1980s

“We've got to reinterrogate our relationship with the EU on the movement of labour. The EU has gone from being a sort of pig farm subsidised bloc to the free movement of labour and capital. Britain is not an outpost of the UN. We have to put the people in this country first.”

Maurice Glasman, Baron Glasman (1961) British philosopher

The Telegraph, 18 Jul 2011 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/8643584/Immigration-should-be-frozen-says-Miliband-adviser.html

“It takes powers which are permanent—this is not a temporary provisions Bill—and cover all fuels. I welcome the Bill because it will enable a Labour Government to do all they want under Labour's programme for Britain…It will give us the power to control all the oil companies, all the multi-nationals, to fix their prices and their distribution systems; and under these powers every other fuel and its use, including the chemical industry, will be brought within the control of the Government of the day. This will include road transport and private transport.”

Tony Benn (1925–2014) British Labour Party politician

Speech in the House of Commons (26 November 1973) http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1973/nov/26/fuel-and-electricity-bill on the Conservatives' Fuel and Electricity (Control) Bill
1970s

“I want us to be the party that represents the whole of Britain and not merely some mythical place called "Middle England", but the truth is that as our country has become more diverse, our party has remained the same.”

Theresa May (1956) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

We should not underestimate the extent of this problem. Ask yourselves: how can we truly claim to be the party of Britain, when we don't truly represent Britain in our party?
2000s, Speech to the Conservative Party conference http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2002/oct/07/conservatives2002.conservatives1 (07 October 2002)

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Margaret Thatcher 348

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