Margaret Thatcher and British scepticism towards European integration

This bachelor's thesis analyses how Margaret Thatcher framed European integration in her public speeches during her premiership (1979–1990). Drawing on a constructivist perspective, it argues that political discourse plays a constitutive role in shaping foreign policy. The study applies qualitative framing analysis to a selection of speeches sourced from the Margaret Thatcher Foundation archive, identifying three key frames: sovereignty, economic, and democracy. The findings demonstrate that while Thatcher consistently supported economic cooperation within the European Community, her discourse increasingly emphasised the protection of national sovereignty and parliamentary authority. The sovereignty frame emerged as dominant, defining the limits of acceptable integration and shaping the interpretation of economic and democratic arguments. The thesis concludes that British Euroscepticism was discursively constructed, with Thatcher’s rhetoric contributing to the development and normalisation of sceptical perspectives on European integration.