Zac Goldsmith recently wrote in the Spectator that it was his father – not the Labour party – who had stopped Britain from joining the euro. The Conservative MP claimed his dad Sir James Goldsmith was to thank, after his Referendum party battled to ‘ensure that Britain would never join the euro without the consent of the people’.
One man who appears to disagree, however, is former Prime Minister Sir John Major. Major has written a letter in this week’s Spectator arguing that Goldsmith did not have any effect on government policy:
‘Much as I admire filial loyalty, I cannot allow Zac Goldsmith’s article about his father to go uncorrected. Sir James Goldsmith was a formidable campaigner against the European Union and the euro currency, but at no point did he alter government policy. Zac Goldsmith suggests that I did not offer a referendum on membership of the euro currency out of conviction. This is wrong.’
Major goes on to say that Goldsmith actually made it trickier for the government to say no to the euro.
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