Foreign and Defence Policy under Thatcher and Major

Abstract

In understanding Conservative foreign policy it can be difficult to distinguish between party policy and British policy, in that post-war British foreign policy has been largely bipartisan. However, it is true to say that the sense of nation and empire has been so important to Conservative thought (Chapter 2) that the issues facing British external relations have had special resonance for the Conservative Party (Bulpitt, 1986). The post-war Conservative Party has been faced with the tensions of maintaining Britain’s world role and readjusting to Britain’s political and economic decline. In the years following the Second World War the central aim of Conservative, and British, policy was to maintain Britain’s centrality in the three circles of influence: the USA, the Empire/Commonwealth, and Europe.