The Maastricht Rebels reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

Maastricht Rebels

The Maastricht Rebels were MPss of the then governing UK Conservative Party who refused to support the government of John Major in a House of Commons votes to secure ratification by the United Kingdom of the Maastricht treaty. This was particularly devasting, as there were 22 rebels as of the 2nd reading of the European Commnunities (Amendment) Bill in May 1992, and the government's majority was only 18. This in effect made every vote on europe a vote of no confidence.

At the height of the rebellion was the Christchurch by-election where a Conservative majority of 23,000 was turned into a Liberal Democrat majority of 16,000. The Conservatives fell to a mere 23points in the opinion polls. John Major threatened the rebels with a general election which would have meant annihilation for the Conservative party, the rebels called his bluff. On November 23rd 1994 Nick Budgen asked him whether he had spoken to the Queen about dissolving Parliament, knowing full well he wouldnt dare. On November 25th 1994 Christopher Gill responded that he would sooner resign as a Conservative than vote for the bill. All those Conservatives that rebelled over the EC Finance Bill on November 28th had the Conservative whip withdrawn, this lasted for 6 months. They continued to harass the government on the european issue until the Conservatives were massacred in the general election of May 1997.

It was an enormously tense time. The Labour party was bringing heart attack victims and MPs who had just had brain surgery (the "stretcher vote") in to vote in an effort to bring the government down. Bill Cash organised one MP who was seriously ill to fly from Scotland secretly so the Conservative Whips wouldn't know.

Those MPs were under enormous pressure, deselection was threatened (so they wouldnt be able to stand at the next election), Conservative Whips spat at them. They were constantly harassed by the party. They came within a whisker of bringing John Major down 3 times. 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". T

Those who had the whip withdrawn included:

• Richard Body
• Nicholas Budgen
• Michael Lord
• Iain Duncan Smith
• Richard Shepherd
• Theresa Gorman
• Christopher Gill
• Teddy Taylor

Other rebels were:

• Bill Cash
• Nicholas Winterton

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