Maastricht Rebels - Significant Events in The Rebellion

Significant Events in The Rebellion

At the height of the rebellion was the 1993 Christchurch by-election, where a Conservative majority of 23,000 was turned into a Liberal Democrat majority of 16,000. Conservative showings in opinion polls were as low as 23 points in the opinion polls. John Major threatened the rebels with a general election (despite one only being held a year earlier), which would probably have meant annihilation for the Conservative Party and a landslide victory for Labour, now being led by John Smith.

It was an enormously tense time. The Labour Party was bringing in heart attack victims and MPs who had just had brain surgery, the stretcher vote, to vote in an effort to bring the government down. The loyalists and rebels in the Conservative party also brought in their own stretcher vote; for example Bill Cash organised for one MP (Bill Walker) who was seriously ill to fly from Scotland secretly, then hid him at the rebels' headquarters in Great College Street, before, with Labour connivance, hiding him in the family room of the Commons so that the Conservative whips would not know; the government consequently lost a vote.

On 22 July 1993, on a Labour amendment to postpone incorporation of the Treaty until the Government adopted the 27th Amendment thereto (the Protocol on Social Policy or "Social Chapter"), the government tied 317-317 against the combined forces of some of the rebels, the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats and others. It was thus only by the Speaker's casting vote that the Government won (the Speaker casting her vote in accordance with the 1867 decision of Mr Speaker Denison not to create a majority where none exists), to date the most recent occasion on which such a vote has been called for. The remaining rebels (who had abstained on the amendment) then joined their colleagues to defeat the main take-note motion 324–316 in dramatic Commons scenes late on a Thursday evening.

On the following day, it emerged, on inspection of the Division List, that the Government Whip and teller of the Opposition votes Irvine Patnick had failed to notice an overcount of one vote for the Labour amendment. Had he done so, it would have meant a clear win without a reliance being placed on the Speaker. On the next day (the Friday) the government tabled a differently worded motion to its predecessor, seeking the "confidence" of the House in their policy on the Social Chapter instead of merely "taking note" thereof. As a result, the Government easily won the substantive question by 339–299. Had the government lost this motion of confidence, a dissolution would have been requested and probably granted.

Bill Cash led the rebellion, organising the finance and offices to set up the European Foundation and to fund legal challenges to the government. Opposition to Maastricht led to the foundation of the Anti-Federalist League which ultimately led to the creation of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP). Certain rebels later went on to join that Party, such as Christopher Gill and Richard Body, with Roger Knapman serving as their leader between 2002 and 2006.

The Maastricht rebels continued to harass the government on European issues, coming close to bringing the Government down three times. They repeatedly called Major's bluff on an early dissolution of Parliament. On November 23, 1994, Nick Budgen asked him whether he had spoken to the Queen about dissolving Parliament. On November 25, 1994, Christopher Gill stated that he would sooner resign as a Conservative than vote for the Bill. All those Conservatives who rebelled over the EC Finance Bill on November 28, 1994 had the Conservative whip withdrawn.

Deselection was threatened, so they wouldn't be able to stand at the next election, although at that time this was almost entirely a decision for the party members in their Constituency Association. They were constantly harassed by the party. Nick Budgen summed the attitude of the rebels up with this quote: "It would be my general feeling that the transference of power to Europe was so important a matter as to require a vote against any organisation and any party that wished to transfer that power." In 1995, Major called an early leadership election to attempt to re-impose his authority on the party, and won. However, the infighting did not stop, and the Conservatives were heavily defeated in the general election of May 1997.