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Editor: Irini Anastasopoulou

Ten years since the death of the Iron Lady of neoliberalism, the Tories are going through a crisis. Thatcherism acts as a weight on the party. Her legacy is a blessing and a curse.

Mark Garrett is convinced.

“The Tory party is the wrong name for the British Conservatives, ‘Thatcher’s party’ is more appropriate”.

Garrett is a political scientist from Lancaster University. “The former prime minister’s passion for a free market economy with low tax rates and minimal interference from the bureaucracy is now a must for any would-be conservative politician,” he told the German news agency dpa.

Ten years ago today, Margaret Thatcher died, but the so-called ‘Iron Lady’ still exerts a significant influence on the fortunes of the Conservatives.

Controversial personality

A controversial and much-discussed economic policy bears her name. Her bag was seen as threatening by many, and her infamous “I want my money back” line at the historic Dublin summit in 1979, calling for a reduction in Britain’s contributions to the European budget, went down in history.

From 1979 to 1990, she was not only the first woman behind the famous black door at number 10 Downing Street.

She was also the first woman to hold the reins of a European government and her prime ministership was the longest in recent British history.

With the texture of her politics, known as “Thatcherism”, she was either admired or hated and left an indelible mark on the 1980s. Garnett compares Thatcher’s legacy in Britain to that of former president Charles de Gaulle in France.

The daughter of a colonial goods merchant, she was tough both internally and externally. He privatized large state-owned companies, such as British Gas and Telecom, but also social housing, proceeded to cut social benefits and curtail unions. The result was massive social unrest with violent protests.

Thatcher owes her success not only to the risky domestic policy but also to the foreign policy she chose to pursue. Victory in the Falklands War against Argentina in 1982 not only cemented her in power, but restored optimism for the future.

After resigning as Prime Minister in 1990, Thatcher entered the House of Lords as a Baroness. In the remote Falkland Islands of the South Atlantic, Thatcher is a legend. Her bust proudly overlooks the harbor of the capital city of Stanley. A local brand of beer is called ‘Iron Lady’.

Her statue in her hometown of Grantham, where she was born on October 13, 1925, has been the target of repeated vandalism. Despite her successes, she was one of the most controversial figures in British post-war history. And there are reasons. For having long opposed German reunification, calling the South African ANC of then-Apartheid South African Nelson Mandela a “typical terrorist organization” and for providing protection to Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.

The Thatcher legacy sucks

But in what state is Thatcher’s party today? The Tories face a real crisis. At present opinion polls predict a clear victory for the Labor Party in the elections scheduled for 2024. It is yet another reason for Conservative members to extol the values ​​of “Thatcherism”. When the death of Thatcher-era Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson at the age of 91 was announced last Monday, Tory MP Simon Clarke said:

“One of the most important things that the Thatcher government did was to change the mood of the nation, and it restored its confidence. The same challenge resonates today, in an age of excessive self-doubt.” In the tussle to succeed scandal-plagued Prime Minister Boris Johnson last summer, the candidates outdo each other in assurances that they were following in the Thatcher tradition.

The hapless Liz Truss, with only a few dozen days in office, dressed in the same clothes as Thatcher and went to the same places as her, but perhaps outshone her role model.

Her extreme approach with tax cuts caused chaos in the market. In 44 days she closed the Downing Street door behind her. But the current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak also emphasizes his closeness to the party model.

But loyalty keeps the party stuck in the past, Tory expert Tim Bale tells dpa. “There is perhaps too much Margaret Thatcher in the Conservative Party,” says the political scientist from Queen Mary University of London.

“He’s such an icon that acts as a weight and makes it difficult for the party to get away from its obsessions like low tax and low spending. So the Thatcher legacy, ten years after her death, is both a blessing and a curse for the party.”