Rebirth of England.

Chapter 882 The Biggest Challenge
"In fact, after Mrs. Thatcher, and especially since the new century, there are no pro-Europeans in the Conservative Party anymore..."

Joe Harriman said to Barron somewhat helplessly:

"If he clearly states his pro-European stance, he will probably not get any support from within the Conservative Party. Cameron now needs support from within the Conservative Party. Every compromise with the EU will put him under tremendous pressure from within the Conservative Party."

She naturally understood Barron's interests, and given Joe Harriman's choice to rely on the other party, it was definitely necessary to carry out Barron's will, but in reality, even if she tried to avoid the Brexit referendum, it would be very difficult at the moment when the Conservative Party was in power.

It is no wonder that in Barron’s previous life, when Cameron resigned as prime minister because of the successful Brexit referendum, someone joked:

"When Conservative Prime Ministers came to power they thought the biggest problem was managing Britain; when they left power they realised the real problem was managing the Conservative Party..."

In fact, Britain's first referendum on European integration took place in 1975 after the Labour Party came to power. The referendum was held to bridge the differences within the Labour Party on its relationship with the European Community. Mrs. Thatcher, then leader of the Conservative Party, campaigned for Britain to remain in the European Community.

Later, after the Conservative Party came back to power, Mrs. Thatcher became increasingly Eurosceptic in developing relations with Europe. Her most famous phrase was "Bring back our money." At that time, she was trying to force the European Community to make concessions to Britain on budget issues.

She also holds a strong anti-European stance in areas such as the European Community's voting system and social policy.

Mrs. Thatcher's Eurosceptic stance aroused strong opposition from pro-Europeans within the Conservative Party at the time, and she gradually lost their support.

In October 1989, her chancellor of the exchequer, Nigel Lawson, resigned, largely due to serious disagreements with her over whether Britain should join the European Economic and Monetary Union.

In 1990, her close comrade-in-arms, former Chancellor of the Exchequer and incumbent Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe, resigned. In his resignation speech in the House of Commons, the usually moderate Geoffrey Howe used fierce words to criticize Mrs. Thatcher's increasingly strong hostility towards Europe, believing that Mrs. Thatcher's European policy endangered the future of the Conservative Party and Britain.

The serious divisions within the Conservative Party on European issues at the time were one of the reasons that led to Mrs. Thatcher's eventual resignation.

Later, when Major succeeded as prime minister, he tried to back down from Thatcher's Eurosceptic stance, but was also strongly criticized within the Conservative Party - the difference was that if the criticism of Thatcher within the Conservative Party was mainly against her strong Euroscepticism, then the criticism of Major was because his Eurosceptic attitude was not strong enough.

The so-called Euroscepticism is not absolute, which means absolutely not Euroscepticism...

The open division within the Conservative Party on European issues also became one of the reasons for the Conservative Party's defeat in the 1997 British general election.

Hague, Smith and Howard, who subsequently succeeded him as Conservative Party leader, were all well-known Eurosceptics. Smith, in particular, was a staunch opponent of the Maastricht Treaty, which established the European Union.

Every development of the EU during this period would cause greater debate within the Conservative Party, and even lead to a split within the party and the defection of MPs. Some MPs joined the UK Independence Party, which has a more extreme stance and the sole purpose of leaving the EU. Some of these members, such as Titford, Knapman, Pearson, Farage, and Nuttel, have successively become leaders of the UK Independence Party. The emergence of the UK Independence Party has also further promoted the development of Euroscepticism in the Conservative Party.

Logically, Mrs Thatcher's resignation in 1990 should have been the time for the Conservative Party to move beyond Thatcherism, but in reality the opposite happened.

Of the 1997 newly elected Conservative MPs in 165, 140 were Eurosceptic.

This situation continued in the 2001 general election, when the Conservative Party moved further to the right and failed to transcend Thatcherism and return to the center. In the 1992-1997 parliament, about 58% of Conservative MPs were Eurosceptic, and after the 2001 British general election, this figure became a staggering 90%.

After being elected leader of the British Conservative Party in 2005, Cameron tried to lower the status of European issues on the Conservative Party's agenda and called on the party to stop arguing over European issues.

However, due to the development of European integration itself and the growth of Euroscepticism within the Conservative Party at that time, Cameron's attempt ultimately failed.

Among the Conservative MPs elected in 2010, only 7 were pro-European, accounting for only 2.3% of the Conservative MPs in the House of Commons!

In this context, the pro-Eurosceptic and Eurosceptical divide within the Conservative parliamentary group has become outdated – it has now become a division between “soft Eurosceptic” (pragmatic) and “hard Eurosceptic”.

"Soft Euroscepticism" refers to those who are not opposed to European integration and the EU in principle, but may be opposed to the EU on county-level policy issues.

"Soft Eurosceptics" tend to support retaining Britain's membership of the EU, although they believe that membership should be renegotiated to a greater or lesser extent.

"Hard Euroscepticism" refers to opposition to the EU and European integration from a fundamental principle, and advocacy of giving up EU membership. Hard Euroscepticism tends to believe that Britain's EU membership is not negotiable, and that negotiation means compromise, which means betrayal of sovereignty to some extent, no matter what kind of concessions can be obtained from Britain's European partners in return.

Although the majority of the Conservative Parliamentary Group under Cameron's leadership are soft Eurosceptics, hard Eurosceptics also account for 35.4% of backbenchers.

More importantly, hard Eurosceptics are more organised and more willing to challenge the Conservative leader’s positions and Conservative Party policies.

This led to the situation in 2013, when, under the pressure of Euroscepticism within the Conservative Party, Cameron was forced to announce in order to gain more support that if he won the election, a referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union would be held during the next parliament...

Then, just as Cameron had imagined, the Conservative Party performed well in the 2015 British general election and was able to form a cabinet independently.

At that time, Cameron had made sufficient preparations to fulfill his promise of a Brexit referendum before the general election. Before that, he had negotiated with the EU on the relationship between Britain and the EU, and the EU was forced to make concessions to Britain in many aspects.

With these achievements, Cameron was confident in maintaining Britain's relationship with the EU, so he announced a referendum on Brexit.

Everyone knows the result. What he did not expect was that the final result of the referendum was a landslide victory for the Eurosceptics. As a result, Cameron had to choose to resign as prime minister.

The Conservative prime ministers after Cameron, whether Theresa May or Johnson, failed to resolve the issue of Britain's withdrawal from the European Union, which eventually led to their resignation. The revolving door of prime ministers in Britain caused political chaos and further harmed Britain's society and economy.

As the saying goes, a three-foot-thick ice does not form overnight. Barron's think tank has also made a detailed analysis of the current situation. It can be said that avoiding the outcome of Britain's final withdrawal from the EU in its previous life has become his biggest challenge at present.

(End of this chapter)