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British FO had concerns over Thatcher’s Jewish links

Updated: 30/Dec/2005 14:36

Margaret Thatcher

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British foreign office officials attempted to encourage Margaret Thatcher to break her strong ties with the Jewish community in the years running up to her election as prime minister, according to documents released this week.

Thatcher achieved the top position in British politics in 1979 after she led the Conservative party to win that year’s general election.

She had maintained close relations with the UK Jewish community, including membership of the Conservative Friends of Israel.

Thatcher’s constituency of Finchley has always included a large and supportive Jewish community.

However, newly released government archive documents, show that her closeness with British Jews was not seen by the foreign office to be totally positive after she became leader of the-then opposition Conservative party, a position which thrust her into world prominence.

Carrington’s concern

Manuscripts released by the government to the National Archives in Kew, West London reveal details of conversations in 1975 between Lord Carrington, the shadow foreign secretary and the British ambassador to Jordan.

The files include comments on the meeting by Michael Tait, an official at the British embassy in Jordan.

In them it is illustrated how the British embassy saw it “in the national interest” for Thatcher to sever links with the Jewish community for fear of upsetting the Arabs.

Tait said that the ambassador believed that Thatcher’s Jewish communal connections “would inevitably do much harm in the Arab world” and “should if at all practicable be severed.”

In the stunning documents, Tait continued: "Carrington agreed that Mrs Thatcher might most painlessly and with some justification get herself off the hook by resigning from all constituency obligations of this sort on the grounds of the rather wider obligations she has now to assume.

Prisoner of the Zionists

The foreign office also, apparently, took issue with the group of “pro-Israeli MPs”.

Tait wrote: "Such a stratagem might resolve the problem in Finchley but if Mrs Thatcher is indeed a prime mover in a wider parliamentary grouping of pro-Israeli MPs, then the difficulty would be trickier to bypass."

He continued: "While we as government and not opposition officials may have no particular brief on Mrs Thatcher’s behalf, it is presumably in the national interest to do what we can to counter Arab fears and suspicions that the leader of HM opposition is already a prisoner of the Zionists."

Mr Tait added in a handwritten postscript: "Why don’t you advise her to swap Finchley for Westminster? Christopher [Tugendhat, Tory MP for Westminster] might prefer such a change."