A reappraisal of John Major’s management of opposition in the Tory Party towards the EU.

Donald Beaton’s PhD research questions: whether a close study of government papers at pivotal moments in Major’s premiership challenges the consensus that he mis-managed the Party over Europe? This view was put forward in the years following the 1997 GE loss. No leader since Major has successfully managed the Party’s EU divisions. The academic interest of this study is the opportunity to explore in more depth than hitherto the reasoning behind Major’s decisions and the nature of the internal opposition he faced. Most of the academic studies of John Major have been based on a mixture of interviews with those who were part of his government, newspaper reports, television interviews and other articles published both while he was in office and over the intervening years. In addition, they have relied upon the few official papers which were publicly available at the time of writing. A large number of government papers have now been released by the National Archive and more will become available over the coming years. I propose to use this newly available archive material to reconsider Major’s strategy for managing his party’s response to his policy towards the EU.