Editing Black Wednesday (section)

==Aftermath==
Other ERM countries such as Italy, whose currencies had breached their bands during the day, returned to the system with broadened bands or with adjusted central parities.<ref>Sevilla, Christina R. [http://aei.pitt.edu/7014/1/sevilla_christina.pdf Explaining the September 1992 ERM Crisis: The Maastricht Bargain and Domestic Politics in Germany, France, and Britain]. Harvard University. Retrieved 21 October 2019.</ref>

Some commentators, following [[Norman Tebbit]], took to referring to ERM as an "Eternal Recession Mechanism"<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2005/feb/10/freedomofinformation.economy |author=Tebbit, Norman |title=An electoral curse yet to be lifted |access-date=30 December 2008 |work=The Guardian|location=London, UK |date=10 February 2005}}</ref> after the UK fell into recession during the early 1990s.  While many people in the UK recall Black Wednesday as a national disaster that permanently affected the country's international prestige, some Conservatives claim that the forced ejection from the ERM was a "Golden Wednesday"<ref>{{Cite news|title=A strong-arm policy is needed to hold the pound down on the rebound|author=Roger Bootle|author-link=Roger Bootle|work=[[The Daily Telegraph]]|date=15 May 2009|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/rogerbootle/5339919/A-strong-arm-policy-is-needed-to-hold-the-pound-down-on-the-rebound.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220112/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/rogerbootle/5339919/A-strong-arm-policy-is-needed-to-hold-the-pound-down-on-the-rebound.html |archive-date=12 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|location=London, UK}}{{cbignore}}</ref> or "White Wednesday",<ref name="kaletsky">{{Cite journal|url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/anatole_kaletsky/article1080261.ece|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100529150111/http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/anatole_kaletsky/article1080261.ece|url-status=dead|archive-date=29 May 2010|title=The reason that Europe is having a breakdown...it's the Euro, stupid|author=Kaletsky, Anatole|access-date=30 December 2008|journal=The Times|date=9 June 2005}}{{subscription required}}</ref> the day that paved the way for an economic revival, with the Conservatives handing [[Tony Blair]]'s [[New Labour]] a much stronger economy in 1997 than had existed in 1992<ref name="kaletsky"/> as the new economic policy swiftly devised in the aftermath of Black Wednesday led to re-establishment of economic growth with falling unemployment and inflation.<ref>[http://www.number10.gov.uk/history-and-tour/john-major-2] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111016063730/http://www.number10.gov.uk/history-and-tour/john-major-2|date=16 October 2011}}</ref> [[Monetary policy]] switched to [[inflation targeting]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Inflation Targeting Has Been A Successful Monetary Policy Strategy|url=https://www.nber.org/digest/apr98/w6126.html|publisher=NBER|access-date=31 October 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Targeting Inflation: The United Kingdom in Retrospect|url=https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/seminar/2000/targets/strach7.pdf|publisher=IMF|access-date=31 October 2016}}</ref>

The [[Second Major ministry|Conservative Party government]]'s reputation for economic excellence had been damaged to the extent that the electorate was more inclined to support a claim of the opposition of the time&nbsp;– that the economic recovery ought to be credited to external factors, as opposed to government policies implemented by the Conservatives. The Conservatives had recently won the [[1992 United Kingdom general election|1992 general election]], and the [[Gallup poll]] for September showed a small lead of 2.5% for the Conservative Party. By the October poll, following Black Wednesday, their share of the intended vote in the poll had plunged from 43% to 29%.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://ksghome.harvard.edu/~pnorris/datafiles/Gallup.xls|title=Gallup spreadsheet|access-date=28 July 2014|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091013232132/http://ksghome.harvard.edu/~pnorris/datafiles/Gallup.xls|archive-date=13 October 2009}}</ref> The Conservative government then suffered a string of by-election defeats which saw its 21-seat majority eroded by December 1996. The party's performances in local government elections were similarly dismal during this time, while Labour made huge gains.

Black Wednesday was a major factor in the Conservatives losing the 1997 general election to Labour,{{citation needed|date=May 2023}} who won by a landslide under the leadership of [[Tony Blair]]. The Conservatives failed to gain significant ground at the 2001 general election under the leadership of [[William Hague]], with Labour winning another landslide majority. The Conservatives did not take Government again until [[David Cameron]] led them to victory in the 2010 general election, 13 years later. Five years later in 2015, the party won its first overall majority 23 years after its last in 1992, five months before the crisis.

[[George Soros]] made over £1&nbsp;billion in profit by [[Short (finance)|short selling]] sterling.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/2773265/Billionaire-who-broke-the-Bank-of-England.html|title=Billionaire who broke the Bank of England|access-date=24 February 2013|location=London, UK|work=The Daily Telegraph|first=David|last=Litterick|date=13 September 2002}}</ref>