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Thatcher's "enemy within" speech 1984

01 March 1991

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Former Prime Minister Thatcher gave her "enemy within" speech at the Carlton Club London in the middle of the 1984/5 miners strike. It was entitled: "Why democracy will last". "The title I first toyed with, for my lecture, was Democracy under Threat" -because there are as we know enemies of democracy both within and without. But that would have been too pessimistic a title because the defenders of democracy are far too numerous... The concept of fair play - a British way of saying "respect for the rules" - must not be used to allow the minority to overbear the tolerant majority. Yet these are the very dangers which we face in Britain today. And one end of the spectrum are the terrorist gangs within our borders and the terrorist states which finance and arm them. At the other end are the Hard Left operating inside our system conspiring to use union power and the apparatus of local government to break defy and subvert the laws. Their course of action is characterised by a calculated hostility towards our Courts of Justice. Our Courts have long been distinguished for their impartiality. Our judges are famous for their fairmindedness, their objectivity and their learning. But it is precisely because the Courts uphold the principles of reasoned justice and equality before the law that the Fascist Left is contemptuous of them". Monday, 26 November 1984. Carlton Club London.

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