Margaret Thatcher: 'Against European Unity' (1)

Europe is not the -creation of the Treaty of Rome. Nor is the European idea the property 
of any group or institution. We British are as much heirs to the legacy of European 
culture as any other nation. Our links to the rest of Europe, the continent of Europe, have 
been the dominant factor in our history. For 300 years we were part of the Roman Empire 
and our maps still trace the straight lines of the roads the Romans built. Our ancestors - 
Celts, Saxons and Danes - came from the continent.  
Our nation was - in that [bad word] word - [bad word] #39; under Norman and 
 [bad word] in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.  
This year we celebrate the three-hundredth anniversary of the Glorious Revolution in 
which the British crown passed to Prince William of Orange and Queen Mary.  
Visit the great churches and cathedrals of Britain, read our literature and listen to our 
language: all bear witness to the cultural riches which we have drawn from Europe - and 
other Europeans from us.  
We in Britain are rightly proud of the way in which, since Magna Carta in 1215, we have 
pioneered and developed representative institutions to stand as bastions of freedom. 
And proud too of the way in which for centuries Britain was a home for people from the 
rest of Europe who sought sanctuary from tyranny.  
But we know that without the European legacy of political ideas we could not have 
achieved as much as we did. From classical and medieval thought we have borrowed 
that concept of [bad word] of law which marks out a civilized society from barbarism. And 
on that idea of Christendom - for long synonymous with Europe - with its recognition of 
the unique and spiritual nature of the individual, we still base our belief in personal 
liberty and other human rights.  
Too often the history of Europe is described as a series of interminable wars and 
quarrels. Yet from our perspective today surely what strikes us most is [bad word] 
experience. For instance, the story of how Europeans explored and colonized and - yes, 
without apology - civilized much of the world is an extraordinary tale of talent, skill and 
courage. 
We British have in a special way contributed to Europe. Over the centuries we have 
fought to prevent Europe from falling under the dominance of a single power. We have 
fought and we have died for her freedom. Only miles from here in Belgium lie the bodies 
of 120,000 British soldiers who died in the First World War. Had it not been for that 
willingness to fight and to die, Europe would have been united long before now - but not 
in liberty, not in justice. It was British support to resistance movements throughout the 
last war that helped to keep alive the flame of liberty in so many countries until the day of 
liberation.