Bill Cash: Margaret Thatcher, as Prime Minister, was the greatest defender of our freedom. She understood the European issue.

Yesterday Members of Parliament have paid tribute to the former Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher.

Bill Cash said: “I spoke in the confidence motion on 22 November 1990, by which time Margaret Thatcher had decided not to stand again, and in circumstances that I do not believe any other Prime Minister, certainly of her stature, ever experienced. The irony of her going is that, unlike other Prime Ministers, who continued in office until a departure of their choosing, she lived out her retirement in the certain knowledge that on the issue that primarily brought about her fall —that of Europe—she had been right. They put her in a dungeon downstairs, underneath this Chamber. I went down there. She was dressed in black. She was traumatised. It was a disgrace. I do not know how it happened, but it was appalling to witness.

“The event that precipitated her fall was the personal statement by the then former Chancellor of the Exchequer, now the right hon. Lord Howe of Aberavon. I do not doubt his sincerity, but I challenge anybody to go through that speech and agree with a single word of it. There was a complete commitment to the exchange rate mechanism. There was the issue of economic and monetary union. There was this and that, but she was turfed out of office for no other reason than that they disagreed with her on Europe. Others have said that it was because of the poll tax or because they feared losing their seats, but it was not; it was because of that one main issue.

“There is much more that I would like to say, but I will not. I will simply say, in conclusion, that in my judgment there will not be a Prime Minister of her stature for decades to come. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister for his veto and for his Bloomberg speech on the five principles, but I also say that Margaret Thatcher, as Prime Minister, was the greatest defender of our freedom. She understood the European issue. She stood up for the freedom of people in this country and in eastern and central Europe. She was a great Prime Minister and I pay tribute to her.”