Editing Kenneth Clarke (section)

===Single Currency: free-hand and referendum pledge===
The matter of a [[referendum]] on Britain joining the planned [[Eurozone|euro]] – first raised by Margaret Thatcher in 1990 – was, after much press speculation, raised again at Cabinet by [[Douglas Hogg]] in the spring of 1996, very likely (in Clarke's view) with Major's approval; Clarke records that Heseltine spoke "with passionate intensity" at Cabinet against a referendum, believing both that referendums were pernicious and that no concession would be enough to please the Eurosceptics. Clarke, who had already threatened resignation over the issue, also opposed the measure and, although Clarke and Heseltine were in a small minority in Cabinet, Major once again deferred a decision.

Major, Heseltine and Clarke eventually reached agreement in April 1996, in what Clarke describes as "a tense meeting ... rather like a treaty session", that there would be a commitment to a referendum before joining the euro, but that the pledge would be valid for one Parliament only (i.e. until the general election after next), with the Government's long-term options remaining completely open; Clarke threatened to resign if this formula were departed from.<ref name="Clarke 2016, pp.369-372">Clarke 2016, pp.&nbsp;369–372</ref>

Clarke, writing in 2016 after the [[Brexit Referendum]], comments that he and Heseltine later agreed that they had separately decided to give way because of the pressure Major was under, and that the referendum pledge "was the biggest single mistake" of their careers, giving "legitimacy" to such a device.<ref name="Clarke 2016, pp.369-372"/>

In December 1996, after Foreign Secretary [[Malcolm Rifkind]] had commented that it was unlikely that the government would join the euro, Clarke and Heseltine took to the airwaves – in apparent unison – to insist that the government retained a free choice as to whether or not to join, angering Eurosceptics.<ref>Crick 1997, pp.&nbsp;431–433</ref> When Tory Party Chairman, [[Brian Mawhinney]], was understood to have briefed against him, Clarke declared: "tell your kids to get their scooters off my lawn" – an allusion to [[Harold Wilson]]'s rebuke of Trades Union leader [[Hugh Scanlon]] in the late 1960s.